We’re giving the Listening Post (and our ears) a break until September. Throughout August we’ll be putting the spotlight on interesting artists we’ve discovered through Fresh On The Net and beyond, starting with this post from Fresh On The Net moderator at our Bavarian outpost, Ludwig Janssen.

Ratur Lite is a literary figure (lite/rature) who experiences a day at the seashore where he meets an old lady. Unaware she suffers from dementia he realizes the sea, the swell, the tides and the broken seashells rolled to and fro by the foamy shoreline resemble how she loses her grip on reality. The story reflects how fragile truth and reality are, and how those two terms must be differentiated. Ultimately, Ratur Lite realizes that he is the pawn and at the mercy of those who dream him up in countless stories, how this spreads his existence all over, and how that makes him more or less immortal and unreal at the same time. He tries to commit suicide the following morning by lying down in the rising flood of the sea, which dissolves him.

Ratur Lite’s story Ratur Lite und das Meer (Ratur Lite And The Sea) has been forwarded in weekly episodes by me, the author, in cooperation with Rittiner & Gomez, a Swiss artist who painted his comic-art illustrations for every episode and published it on his weblog isla volante.

Why do I mention this? Because writing is a matter of music, muse and inspiration, too.

While writing most of the episodes I listened to the music of ClassicalGlass, a Canadian artist. ClassicalGlass’s stream on Soundcloud became the flow of consciousness at the mouth of this river, leading to the sea of peaceful inspiration. Going through the motions, the mood of his soothing atmospheric piano pieces cleared my mind and strengthened my concentration while narrating the story I imagined.

And if you follow the links presented here and listen to further pieces on Soundcloud you might experience the same as I did: Being rocked gently by the swell of his music can be contemplative, dissolved in harmonies, sunk – but not lost – in meditative concentration and open minded, ready for the kiss of the muses, the inspiration to come your way. Rolling fragile and vulnerable like the broken shells in the sea-foam at the shoreline (“sureline” of death waiting).

Philip Dupuis (ClassicalGlass) is a multi-instrumentalist and composer from Canada who specializes in melodic minimalist pieces that attempt to tell a musical story within each piece through tonal and dynamic variations. Philip believes that music, at its best, conveys beauty in a way that no other art form can. As such he agrees with the English poet John Keats who proclaimed “Beauty is truth, truth beauty — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”.

Philip began his musical life as a percussionist but fell in love with the piano in his late teens. Since then he has worked on embellishing his piano works with other keyboard sounds from a number of different synthesizers to create a unique atmospheric quality to music. These three pieces are a fine example:

CLASSICALGLASS – Destination Unknown

CLASSICALGLASS – The Long Road Home

CLASSICALGLASS – Remembering When

My Weblog Springvogel has more stories about Ratur Lite and my other literary figures: https://springvogel.blogspot.com/

Bavaria, 30th of July 2018, Ludwig Janssen

Credits

• ClassicalGlass, Ottawa, CDN, for providing biographic information.
• Rittiner&Gomez, Spiez, CH, for their courtesy to use two illustrations of “Ratur Lite und das Meer”.