Looming: Janet Swan, Scott Robertson & Liz Robertson was presented at Queen Street Mill Burnley on Saturday 12th April 2025.

Looming is a 16 minute soundscape about our relationship with rhythm, created by Scott Robertson and Janet Swan, produced by Liz Robertson.

Using modern digital technology, the work takes you on a compelling journey which begins in the weaving shed of Queen Street Mill. The work combines the hypnotic sound of these looms (recorded on site at Queen Street Mill, Burnley) and was also inspired by the ground-breaking poetry of local “mill girl” – Ethel Carnie Holdsworth who was herself inspired by the rhythm of the looms.

This original and organic work, inspired by poetry from “mill girl” turned poet and novelist Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, explores the sound of industrialism, commerce, pleasure, mundanity, and celebration. Interweaving the rhythms of our surroundings with stories gathered from interviews with Lancashire workers past and present, the work stands alone or can be paired with dance. Looming has a documentary audio companion available on the BTB website. This explains the process, and features musician, educator and researcher Dr. Dave Camlin (Royal College of Music) who espouses the humanising nature of music making and music responding.

Rhythm has the power to both inspire and unsettle, and we ask you to recognise and pick out the rhythms which do that for you. Or perhaps the rhythms which might stir you to action for change with others?

Attached below is a podcast style audio documentary created by the artists with a variety of collaborators, which explores the concepts of the work and inception of “Looming”.

The sound piece below (Rhythm of the Looms) is an earlier version of this work made as part of a commission for the Lancashire Textile Gallery where Janet Swan, Scott Robertson and Liz Robertson were asked to respond to a piece of textile heritage, in this case (the Jacquard Loom Punch Card from Queen Street Mill). The artists then created an artistic interpretation sampling, sequencing, filtering and manipulating sounds from the weaving shed.