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". Nice.

Now, trip down the folkish by-ways of our unplugged morning Next Steps.

Kent's Pete Molinari, who spent a couple of years travelling round the U.S.A., turns our morning thoughts to the hobo-folk legacy of Woody Guthrie and Ramblin' Jack Elliott with "Ballad On the Milk Train", Karine Polwart tells a tale of daily survival in the face of crushing tragedy on "The Sun's Comin' Over the Hill", and 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".

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 a lazy harmonica, such as that heard on "Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning" by Cowboy Junkies — except for the gently picked guitar. For that, look no further than Simon & Garfunkel's exquisite "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M." Of course, we can't always feel top o' the morning, and for those times a melancholy piano — like Allan Taylor's on "The Morning Lies Heavy" — hits the mark.

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 James Grant and the fantastical meanderings of Joanna Newsom, these tracks are a great way to open any day.