The Hard Rubber Orchestra is a funkier incarnation of the NOW Orchestra. Led by trumpeter John Korsrud, it uses a similar pool of Vancouver musicians, although the instrumentation here focuses on brass and a rhythm section.
Cruel Yet Fair is a studio recording that was released by Disques Victo in time for the orchestra's performance at the 1998 Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. Korsrud threw together brain-teasing compositions and hot-lava avant-funk numbers. Of the latter category, the half-free/half-mad title track and "Scratching the Surface" deserve a medal. "Iguana" is also a mean piece of avant-garde big band music. Among these numbers, the soft-spoken violin and cello "Duo" and the multi-tracked contemporary trumpet piece "Speck" feel out of place. "Danse Russe" merges both tendencies: after a careful opening it bursts into a rhythm-driven orgy.
Cruel Yet Fair doesn't sound as in-your-face as George Lewis and the NOW Orchestra's The Shadowgraph Series or Kappa's albums. That is imputable to Korsrud's good-but-not-fantastic writing and to sound quality. Not that the album sounds bad, but one would expect so many saxophones, trumpets, and trombones to make more noise, especially when compared to the aforementioned albums' ear-splitting clarity of sound. Still a nice album fans of creative orchestras will appreciate. ~ François Couture