After all of the war updates: newspaper, radio, web, television...I'm just plain burned out. Depressed. Tired. Angry. Not exactly in that order.

And maybe all at the same time.

So it's time for a little aural therapy. Some guilty pleasure. Musical comfort food.

No, it's not something sweet ( Alison Krauss - New Favorite). Something skronky ( Anthony Braxton - For Alto Saxophone). Something guilty ( that damned-soundtrack-that-everybody-loved-back-in-the-early80s-that-I-always-professed-to-hate-but-secretly-loved).

No, it's the "F-word". Fusion. And the recording is Billy Cobham's Spectrum.

I know why people hated fusion: the excessive musicianship, the flashy (and often endless) solos, the self-indulgence.

And of course this record has all of that. But it's also got the sick guitar and keyboard interplay of Tommy Bolin and Jan Hammer (long before Miami Vice), some tasty funk guitar (pretty much foreign to this genre) and the how-the-hell-did-he-do-that drumming of Billy Cobham.

Check it out.

You'll find yourself turning it up. Maybe more than once.

It may not drown out the war...but it might help.

(First posted on Mark Is Cranky)