Acoustic Morning

It's a blissful feeling — the sun is just below tree-high, your consciousness is stuck midway between dream and reality, and slowly it dawns on you: there's nothing in your immediate future, save the magnificence of the morning and a bunch of mellow sounds like these. Seattle's Fleet Foxes refract your idling thoughts through the acoustic dapples of "Sun It Rises" and Coldplay reminds us "Don't Panic" because "we live in a beautiful world." Joni Mitchell hits a lyrical high point with her description of a "Chelsea Morning" when "the sun poured in like butterscotch and stuck to all my senses". Now, trip down the folkish by-ways of our unplugged-morning Next Steps.

Mornings can bring a variety of moods and emotions . . . and you'll experience plenty of them here in Next Steps, as Karine Polwart tells a tale of daily survival in the face of crushing tragedy on "The Sun's Comin' Over the Hill," Simone Rubi and Terri Loewenthal — aka Rubies — break through to daybreak from the lonesome night on "Silver Mornings," and Joanna Newsom transports us into strange, fantastical spaces on "This Side of the Blue." And if you want to shake the sleep from your eyes gently, look no further than Simon & Garfunkel's exquisite "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M." No rousing bugles here, as we further explore the morning's gentler minutes in Deep Cuts.

There are few more suitable accompaniments for a slowly rising sun than the lazy harmonica, such as that heard on "Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning" by Cowboy Junkies — except perhaps for the mysterious violin, such as can be heard on "The Third Light" by the Left Outsides. James Grant summons gentle waves of compassion with guitar and husky vocal on "I'll Comb the Tangles from Your Hair," Melbourne's Art of Fighting moves at the pace of a leaf on a lake on "Misty As the Morning," and a couple of Posies (Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer) show there's more to their mornings than power pop.

This collection of Acoustic Morning Essentials is positively not for those days when we've overslept, we're late for work, and only a sobering blast of speed metal can bring us round. Here, our mellow friends, we're all about the sun casting animated shadows on the bedroom walls, time slowing to an effortless crawl and life unfolding at the pace of a flower as it opens up to the day's warmth. If only mornings always sounded like this . . . from the whimsy of Newton Faulkner to the rich vocal balm of Kris Kristofferson and the fantastical meanderings of Joanna Newsom, these tracks are a great way to open any day.