Wasser’s easy-going, gorgeous songs announce her as a talent in impressive style.   Full text...

This is quite simply a stunning record, full of instantly accessible songs, blending the searing qualities of her voice with only a piano for backing, as on the title track or the rousing Eternal Flame and the spine-tingling The Ride, where her voice stops one in one's tracks.  Full text...

There might not be a better solo debut all year.  Full text...

Joan Wasser's credits indicate a lady exalted as the queen of all fag hags. She's played violin for Scissor Sisters and has cropped up in the bands of both Rufus Wainwright and Antony Hegarty. She's even worked with über-queen Elton John. Now she's solo. Sort of.  Full text...

The Ride is nothing short of an amazing record – the sort that never fails to send a shiver down the spine once the journey begins. Wasser provides the ultimate chauffeur.  Full text...

Piano and violin are natural bedfellows to Joan's tremulous sigh, and these form the bedrock of Real Life, but little darts of saxophone and chutzpah keep it from expiring of terminal tweeness.   Full text...

The coup "Real Life" pulls off is to refract the hazy romanticism of Joni Mitchell's peerless "Hejira" through the lenses of alt. country and the American modern jazz songbook without once resorting to pastiche or paean. The odd rococo flourish points out her affinity with Mr Wainwright's aesthetic and occasionally (the title track, "The Ride", "Anyone") you suspect Wasser is k.d .lang's long lost twin, but the shots Joan As Police Woman calls are very much her own.   Full text...

Real Life loses its way on cushy, delicately crooned ballads like "The Ride" and the title track, which are tasteful and Starbucks-ready like the last Beth Orton record, only missing backbone, and tunes. Wasser kept the fiddle playing to a minimum; couldn't she have done the same with the sleepy stuff?  Full text...