A Sensation Never Yet Known

A Sensation Never Yet Known is a new film work by Luke Fowler exploring the ongoing history of electronic music in Scotland. Fowler’s film combines footage of recent workshops led by Glasgow Library of Synthesised Sound (GLOSS) with explorations of the practice of UK composer Janet Beat, an electronic and electro-acoustic music pioneer.

In material sourced from an interview with Fowler, Janet vividly recalls her earliest memories of sound and her experiences of being doubly marginalised as a woman musician in a then-male-dominated field and a composer of electronic music at a time when it was viewed with suspicion by the musical establishment, including the Musicians’ Union.

The project is informed by Fowler’s collaboration with GLOSS and with University of Glasgow musician-researchers Louise Harris and Kevin Leomo. Drawing on their respective practices, Fowler traces aesthetic and historical resonances between music made today and Janet’s use of electronic instruments and experimentation with techniques such as visual scores. Extending Fowler’s long-standing interest in how cultural and political figures of the 1960s and 1970s are remembered, A Sensation Never Yet Known also reflects his own practice as a musician and an artist-filmmaker.