ArtistInfo

Nick Allbrook
Wabi Sabi Bruto Bruta

Album AU 2019 on Spinning Top Music label
Rock (Alternative Rock)

WABI-SABI-BRUTO-BRUTA Introduction by Peter Bibby Once, I turned to dust. I had been making curtains out of sticks, laying wooden bricks with reusable bostik adhesive and dressing myself in tropical rags for colour as well as comfort, but never for long. I stopped letting things get permanent ever since I learnt that nothing lasts forever, except forever. I was a cheap man in an expensive world and I was starting to wear it on the flakes of my cold dry skin. I worked in the waterproofing industry. Ironically I hadn't worked in weeks due to heavy rain. I always loved water until I got into the waterproofing business. One drop can infiltrate a weeks work and slowly contaminate years of work, reducing structural integrity down to rust and leaky misery. A wet reminder of how futile the efforts of mankind are in the face of nature and time. One rare winters day the sun came out and I found myself on the roof of some old pub somewhere in the richer suburbs between a Swan and an Indian, sealing the gaps, smearing grey membrane, waging war against the weather, absorbing any moisture that dared show it's damp face. The day felt long, I grew heavy as it grew late. A corner of me fell away, wet, waterlogged flesh, too soggy to hold onto my dry bones any longer. It hit the roof like a tragedy and washed my work away, down through the cracks, into the pub, into Big Jim's $17 afternoon lager, all through Petrol Percy's $12 cranberry soda. Fate Susan's timing couldn't have been worse as her $38 special steak meal arrived on her table only to become consumed by an ocean of chemicals, roof minerals and 150 years of pub muck leaked quick through four stories of deteriorated piss soaked building. An hour earlier they had praised my efforts, adoring my careful attention. One quick bit of bodily decay had them spitting and cursing, wishing for pitchforks but feeling dinner forks would do just fine. It was game over for me as I made my escape back home, coming to terms with reality, saying farewell to my tools, my boots, my harness, my purpose. I started listening to MUSIC when I got back home and I decided to fire up again, regain my pride and work ethic through authentic house chores: dishes, laundry, sweeping, all that good stuff I had forgotten about in the haze fighting water. I put on my favourite Bruce Springsteen track "Born In The Usa" (growing up in Western Australia I had always dreamnt of being an American) and to my great surprise, as the final notes began to fade away Bruce kept singing, warm and husky, delivering me this mantra: "WABI SABI BRUTO BRUTA WABI SABI BRUTO BRUTA WABI SABI BRUTO BRUTA WABI SABI BRUTO BRUTA WABI SABI BRUTO BRUTA....." over and over again. Slowly his voice floated away and was replaced with a side of Bruce I had never heard. It was music so gorgeous and soft and harsh and dirty and it dragged me to my kitchen. I put the sink plug in it's place and turned the tap to full release, facing my downfall, willingly coming face to face with the enemy, charged by Bruce Springsteen's brand new music. At first my dishes seemed like ordinary dishes, coupla bits, coupla bobs, but they had been busy forming an unusual build up of muck that looked like ancient forest made of pork leftovers, the type that only elbow soap can combat. The music playing around me seemed to seep into my skin and out of the pores of my elbow a foamy substance started frothing out, a strong odour of fresh, disinfectious cleanliness oozed into my nostrils and gave me the strength of seventy bulls. The dishes quivered in my presence and submitted to my power, left sparkling clean gasping for air on the drying rack as I piled them up one by one. They knew doom had come to kiss them on their greasy lips and before long I was the clear victor. I pulled the plug and watched the filthy dish water suck away down the drain as “Wabi-sabi-bruto-bruta” continued to caress my ears. Like a continuous dicking, as in, constant in, no out, no reverse, all forth and no back, . Dick is a bad example, more like breath constantly exhaling, never inhaling but never needing to, the opposite of a vacuum cleaner, something like a garden blower but sounds nicer and smells less like 2 stroke, like a strong wind. Either way, I felt gorgeous and mighty as I watched with pure ecstasy the dishwater fleeing down the drain, to a place of no consequence to me, where Big Jim has no right to prod me with cutlery. A single tear fell from my eye followed the last of that dishwater down to oblivion and as it disappeared I kissed the bottom of the empty sink knowing more than ever that there was no other way anything could be. The hours scraped by and the more filth I banished the more filth seemed to show itself, taunting me in it's various nature. It was elementary behaviour and I was wise and old. I was wise and old until I was exhausted, and then I retired. I retired face down on the carpet. I had forgotten to vacuum. My ears sniffed up the last of Bruce Springsteen's new music but not the years of shit and and matter embedded in the fur of my home's floor. Face down in that dusty moist rug I began to suffocate and sink down. The wabi sabi rinsed in and around me and out of me like I was it's chore and into the carpet it went, chewing particle by particle, beauty in an ever changing inevitability, slow brutality hungry for some breakfast. Years passed as I moved slowly through the earth, sinking further south I eventually fell through the other side and landed face to face, stomach to stomach, slap bang on top of my old friend Nick who I hadn't seen for a long while. I kissed him and it made him uncomfortable, he asked me to get off him but I said "Not yet." I recall a dialogue carrying out similar to the following: "You're hurting me a bit..." said Nick. "I wish that wasn't the case," I replied. "Please get off? You're sticky and heavy and you've pulled me from a dream I'd like to get back to." "It's morning where I came from Nick, it was night when I left. Relax." "You smell like old carpet and decay. Your skin is various shades of green. I can see moss on your tongue." "That may be the case Nicholas but I have just heard a very lovely collection of music by The Boss, Bruce Springsteen. It gave me the strength to carry on, I came out on top before I fell to the bottom, right through the bottom, all the way through to here, skin on skin with you. Have you seen the light, Nick? Have you heard Bruce Springsteen’s record called "Wabi Sabi Bruto Bruta?" "I have heard that record, I made it quite recently." "You're name is not Bruce Springsteen, you are lying." "My name may not be Bruce Springsteen but I am not a liar," Nick said, as he slipped a screen between our faces, showing me the session files. "I can't believe it's not Bruce...." I whispered as I turned to dust out of pure disbelief. Nick sucked me up through his big gaping belly button and vomited me onto this page where you now see me in all my past, present, and ever deteriorating future. I didn't get a chance to shower before I let the man breathe. The moral of the story is this beautiful sonic journey is by Nicholas Allbrook, not by Bruce Springsteen. R.I.P. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN 1902-1948

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