co-writing several songs as found on the album Against the Stars. Wasser first began to make a name for herself in the indie rock world during her time in The Dambuilders as she developed her aggressive style of playing, which led to work outside the group. Wasser moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1996, while The Dambuilders disbanded in October 1997. Black Beetle In May 1997, her boyfriend of three years, musician Jeff Buckley, drowned accidentally in Memphis. She found it "such a traumatic experience of loss. I needed to grieve but I didn't know how". She continued to play with Those Bastard Souls, a band started in 1995 by a close friend of the couple, Dave Shouse of Grifters. They made a record entitled Debt & Departure attempting to respond to Buckley's death. In late 1997, she created a band with the remaining members of Buckley's band called Black Beetle and finished an eponymous album that was never released. This was the first project where she was writing as well as fronting a band. She commented, "I found singing terrifying at first, I didn't know about the boundaries of my voice and I had no idea what words I wanted to say. The violin had been my voice for so long." Antony and the Johnsons In 1999, Joan joined Antony and the Johnsons, initially as a violinist, but eventually as a full-time member. She contributed to their Mercury Prize-winning album, I Am a Bird Now. She explained that she "was called up to stand in for another violinist but by the end of the rehearsal (she) was in the band". The experience was "like a renaissance", and she "was surrounded by gentle people and quiet music [...] I had a space to let go". Joan As Police Woman While working with others, Wasser began to develop her own material, which she described as sounding "like old Al Green records". She focused on guitar and singing as "for a long time, I was really content with playing violin [...] and then all of a sudden it wasn't enough". The end of Black Beetle in June 2002 brought the beginning of Wasser's work as a solo artist and the creation of a new band, Joan as Police Woman. The name was a reference to the TV series Police Woman featuring Angie Dickinson. Wasser found the actress inspirational as "she was really