On No Joke, Patricia Nicholson's radical poetry accompanies shape-shifting improvisations led by her husband, bassist William Parker, along with saxophonists James Brandon Lewis and Devin Brahja Waldman. The two sessions featured either Gerald Cleaver or Francisco Mela on drums, and violist Melanie Dyer played on the first, which is when the bulk of the album was recorded. "Flare Up" opens the album, a 19-minute barrage of stunning interplay between sax and viola, gradually becoming more furious and sporadic as Nicholson speaks of lies, blazing guns, and "red hats bathing in the river of illusion." The music reflects confusion, anger, chaos, and momentary feelings of sorrow, but it gradually ends up returning to the calmer, more ordered rhythm as the lyrics become more hopeful. "Little Black Kid with the Swollen Stomach" is the record's only vocal selection without Nicholson, focusing on clashing saxophone lines before Mela cries out a Spanish translation of a poem by Parker that seems to point to music as a mode of survival. "Struggle" is a more compact statement about being struck down, silenced, and forced to learn everything one knows on the streets. After the sorrowful instrumental "Wilted Light as Flower," "No Joke" is another turbulent marathon with lyrics that seem to ramble at times but hit hardest when Nicholson lands on lines like "replacing humanity with righteous hatred." Like "Flare Up," it all concludes with a message of hope, except this time the music doesn't start to calm down before the end, bashing and scraping away until the final note. Truly powerful. ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi