Anyone who has paid close attention to the works of American singer-songwriter Joan Wasser will know her penchant for melancholy.
Her albums under the moniker Joan As Police Woman have been littered with songs rooted in intensity and sadness. Eternal Flame from her debut Real Life, an ode to her boyfriend singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley who drowned in 1997 and songs on her 2008 album To Survive, all about her mother's battle with cancer.
Her choice of collaborators over the years - contemporaries also known for music well-versed in pain, like Antony Hegarty, Rufus Wainwright and the late Lou Reed - also speaks volumes. So why now has Wasser made her most uplifting record yet?
"I think I allowed myself a bit of confidence and a bit of comfort. I decided I was going to do exactly what I wanted and not question it," she says of The Classic, released here on Friday.