Joan Wasser – aka musician Joan As Police Woman – was watching TV in her Brooklyn apartment when she was captivated by a news story from half the world away. It was mid-2020 and, as the pandemic laid waste to New York, here was footage from New Zealand where the coronavirus was struggling to get a foothold.

And the story had a hero: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. It almost felt like a message from an alien world. Wasser jotted down some lyrics.

Take me to your leader
’Cause I’m ready to play (can’t hold my breath any longer)
Word on the street is she’s a healer
I know I’m down to obey

And that’s how Wasser found an unlikely heroine for her ninth album, The Solution is Restless. The singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist insists Ardern was “kind of a superstar for anyone paying attention”.

“I was writing this record during lockdown and witnessing her navigate the pandemic, especially in light of how the United States and its unmentionable president was dealing with the situation. It was like ‘wow, this is how it could be’: with respect, with honour, with common sense, someone taking care the best she can of the people in her country. So [the song] Take Me to Your Leader was imagining our country going to her and saying ‘Teach us how to run our country!’”

Wasser says her connection to Ardern was predestined. The two women share a birthday, though Ardern is 10 years younger. While Wasser says she has accomplished less than the 41-year-old Ardern, nine albums beginning with Real Life in 2006, plus global tours and festivals make an impressive curriculum vitae. Her latest album solidifies her reputation for sonic adventurousness and clever lyrics.

Wasser’s The Solution is Restless partners her vocals, guitar and keyboards with the late Tony Allen, Fela Kuti’s drummer and a pioneer of the Afrobeat sound. Allen died in April 2020 so this was one of his final recordings: an all-night improvisation session in a Paris studio. Allen and Wasser met through Damon Albarn who invited her to perform at his Africa Express live shows in Ethiopia in 2011. He partnered Wasser and Allen for an Africa Express in 2019, where she asked Allen if he’d record with her, along with the third in their trio, singer-songwriter Dave Okumu from London.

“I brought my friend Dave Okumu over from London [because] we’d always been like, how are we gonna work together in the future? I realised this is the moment that I get to work with Dave.

“Dave, Tony and I got in there and I purposely brought nothing pre-written, I just wanted to jam … We played two hours, had a giant meal, listened back and everyone was totally psyched, so we jammed for another couple of hours. Dave and I were playing a groove. I was on keys, Dave was on bass then Tony came in on drums. It was very organic, very natural.”