HCMF 2018 Shorts Proposal 

 
Hardworking Families - “You’re Too Late” 
 
Tom Bench 
 
My proposal for HCMF’s Shorts program is for a live performance of my electroacoustic 
composition Y ​ ou’re Too Late​. This piece was devised and assembled for an album I am releasing 
on the Glistening Examples label later this year. I work under the name Hardworking Families, and 
would present this piece as a solo performer. 
 
The piece has as its backbone a late night field recording of Brighton Station, made shortly before 
the last trains of the day had arrived and departed. The station building is large and tall, meaning 
that sounds reverberate in an interesting way, and the relative lack of passengers at this time 
highlights the reverberation of each sound. During the recording, certain events like trains arriving, 
passengers shouting and the opening of doorways are interspersed with passages of relative 
inactivity and ‘empty’ space. I enjoy the interplay of direct and reflected sound in this recording, 
creating subtle phenomenon that are easily missed when we are actually present in spaces like 
this. By diffusing these sounds into the HCMF performance space, I would be added a further 
layer of reflection and reverberation to the original recording, imprinting the performance space 
onto Brighton Station. 
 
I developed this recording into the finished piece by adding various layers of electronic sound, 
sourced from electromagnetic interference, internal mixer feedback, shortwave radio, cassette 
and synthesiser. The intention was to augment and complement the station recording rather than 
to overwhelm the original sound; to highlight certain sonic elements through their proximity to 
other sounds. The additional elements are designed to blend in with the station recording, only 
occasionally rising clearly above the sound field. 
 
For HCMF I would have an 18 to 19 minute version of the station recording playing through the 
mixing desk, preferably in four channel surround sound if possible. Alongside this playback I would 
produce and mix in the other elements live, using a variety of electronics and a mixer. Rather than 
exactly recreating the recorded version, I would follow a loose structure in order to produce a 
site-specific version of the piece that suits the acoustic environment of the performance. I would 
pay a lot of attention to the spatialisation and volume of the elements, so as to create the 
impression of the electronics arising out of and merging with the station recording, and to 
immerse the audience as fully as possible. 
 
 
 
 
Please follow this private link in order to download the recorded version of this piece. Please note 
that this is an unmastered version of what will appear on the Glistening Examples album this year; 
nevertheless, it should offer a relatively clear impression of how my performance will sound. 
 
https://we.tl/9m1dOgIdMF