It’s December, which round these parts means it’s time once again for The Joyzine Advent Calendar! This year we’re celebrating our 20th edition, so we’ve scoured the archives to mix in some calendar classics along with a few fresh festive cuts from our favourite artists.
As always every track on the calendar will be absolutely free to download, and we don’t force you to sign up for our mailing list (though you can if you want, here) or hand over all of your personal data. The calendar is our Christmas gift to the world (or at least the part of it that enjoys seasonal songs by obscure indie musicians), but if you’re also in the giving mood we’d love you to make a donation to our chosen cause, the excellent anti-racism charity HOPE not hate, which you can do here.
On with the free festive tunes!
Today’s Advent Calendar offering is our first to be newly recorded specially for us this year, and it comes from long-term friend of Joyzine Old Man May, previously known as The May and formerly one half of Joyzine faves Vienna Ditto. Since they went their separate ways he’s been crafting experimental pop music using found sounds and an assortment of electronic gizmos that I can’t begin to comprehend. He put these to good use for his track ‘Stromatolite (Deep Time In The Goldilocks Zone)’, which you can buy now on our 20th anniversary compilation. Today he’s provided us with a brand new festive track, ‘Laden Sleigh’.
We caught up with Nigel to hear about ponds, Messiaen and quantised voltages, whatever they are.
What have you been up to this year?
I changed my name to Old Man May and buried my head in wires as I’ve continued to search for that elusive third sound, and released a lot of music on my Patreon https://www.patreon.com/themay. I’ve also been writing some minimalist music for theatre and finally studying the music of Messiaen properly, in order to construct properly avant-garde pop. In order to do this I’ve learnt a tiny bit of piano, I’m about halfway to grade 1. I’ve taught around 3000 guitar lessons and helped my wife make a pond.
What have you got planned for 2024?
I’ll be releasing a new EP in the spring and writing a whole lot more theatre music. Hopefully more ponds in the offing too… I’ll be reconnecting with social media via my Instagram and Facebook.
Tell us about your track
It has wintery winds, sleigh bells, and it tingles with Yuletide expectations. It also has a lot of quantised voltages triggering Karplus-Strong string plucks.
This year Joyzine has been celebrating our 20th birthday – what were you up to in 2003?
I’d just started university at Oxford Brookes and was settling into the town of Oxford… it was strange actually, I’d moved from Reading, which I considered to be really boring, but we had two or three raves going on each weekend at different squats right in the centre of town. I guess I’m more of an organ recital kind of guy these days so Oxford will suffice.
Any new year’s resolution?
To incite personal and societal revolution.
Download: ‘Laden Sleigh‘
Make a donation to HOPE not hate
Follow Old Man May on Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp / Patreon
Check back tomorrow for another free festive download!
Catch up on all of this year’s Advent Calendar Tracks so far:
1: MJ Hibbett – I Got You What You Want For Christmas
2: Matt Edible & The Obtuse Angels – Advent Beard
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