Joy to the world! It’s the return of our favourite festive tradition, the Joyzine Advent Calendar, back for its 22nd consecutive edition, which as far as we’re aware makes it the longest running on the net.
As always, every track is completely free to download and we don’t require you to sign up for a mailing list (though you can if you want to) or hand over your personal data – it’s our way of saying thank you to everyone who’s visited the site during 2025 and to hopefully bring a few more listeners to some very deserving artists.
However, if you do enjoy the tracks we would love you to consider making a donation to our chosen cause, which this year is HOPE not hate, and their stirling work researching, campaigning, and supporting communities to build HOPE and oppose far-right extremism. You can make a donation here.
Amongst the best pieces of news we received this year was the return of the wonderful Reckless Yes Records with a superb compilation, Among The Wildflowers, packed with Joyzine favourites, including today’s two Advent Calendar artists.
We first met Kat Five as one half of electro duo Feral Five, and through her work, whether solo, duo or collaborative, our jaw has regularly been dropped by her knack for merging art, technology and humanity, having used sonified algorithms, 3D printers and an AI ‘Kat Five twin’ in previous records and performances to tackle topics including truth, trust and mental health, while also collaborating with the likes of Heaven 17’s Martyn Ware, design icon Malcolm Garrett and roots reggae legend Horace Andy.
We’re always intrigued to find out about her latest creations and are therefore delighted to be able to share ‘Freak Midwinter’ with you today, exclusively on Joyzine. It’s Kat’s 21st Century reimagining of one of the most beautiful traditional Christmas carols and was written specially for the Calendar.
We caught up with Kat for a festive q&a session:
Tell us a little bit about your track please
‘Freak Midwinter’ is a de and re-construction of ‘Bleak Midwinter’. It’s playful dirty-sweet acid disco, capturing some of the bubbling chaos of the season, with echoes of Fat White Family meets The Moonlandingz. I started singing new lyrics to the classic Xmas song. It flowed and partied itself up!
What have you been up to in 2025?
2025 has been a whirlwind of a year creating, performing, and also acting on my own advice in the tune ‘Apply the Pressure’, to tip the world back round rightly.
I’ve played ace festivals Cro Cro Land and Together, and released new music including ‘Switch’ – thanks Joyzine for the video premiere, and to John Kennedy for spinning it on Radio X X-Posure.
Performing a stripped back live session for LOUD WOMEN on Resonance FM with Anita Maj guesting was pretty special. Plus I’ve summoned woodland spirits with silver branches to celebrate forests – thanks to everyone who joined me on stage.
I’m honoured to have joined the Hard Art Collective. Also I’ve been championing creative rights and talking about AI and ethics in music at conferences around Europe.
And what are your plans for next year?
Kat Five in 3D! I’m collaborating with 3D artist Tank Thunderbird on a VR project for my next release, it’s an activism inspired adventure for a banger of a tune. More music is on its way and I can’t wait to play more shows too.
What have been your musical highlights of the year from other bands/artists?
This is a hard one as I’ve so many highlights! The stunning and powerful Together For Palestine concert at Wembley Arena with Brian Eno, Neneh Cherry, Gorillaz, Nai Barghouti and many more – let’s get the T4P Lullaby track to Xmas Number 1!
There’s Rowetta singing a Joy Division song at The Musos Awards at the Electric Ballroom, I cried. Benefits’ visceral shows. Joshua Idehen at SXSW London. Amy True, and She’s Got Brass, at Together Festival. Gina Birch at the 100 Club, Treaks at MaMA Festival. The whole of Cro Cro Land.
Christmas: The most wonderful time of the year or a big bag of humbug?
I like the chaos and I’ll be rolling myself in glitter as per this new track. It’s the perfect time to party and see lots of friends as well as family.
Stream and download ‘Freak Midwinter’ below
Make a donation to HOPE not hate
Kat Five: Website / Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky / Bandcamp
The second half of today’s Reckless Yes fest comes from Charley Stone. Not content with being the guitarist everybody wants in their band, she’s also a bloody brilliant songwriter and performer, as evidenced by last year’s Here Comes The Actual Band LP, which graced many an end of year favourites list. That album was followed up by the similarly wonderful single ‘I’ve Gotta Know’ back in October this year, and we’re super excited to offer the track for free on today’s calendar window.
If you need an extra Charley Stone fix before the year is out, you can catch her playing with The Fallen Women (live The Fall karaoke with special guests inc Stewart Lee) at The Lexington on 28th December (tickets here) and The Dumb Blondes (queer punk DIY Dolly Parton tribute band) also at The Lexington on 29th December (tickets here).
We caught up with Charley for a festive q&a
Tell us a little bit about your track please
‘I’ve Gotta Know’ is the first of three stand alone singles that I recorded with Jon Clayton at OneCat Studio. It’s a jangly, punky, indie pop song about a situationship, and like the song ‘Free Food’ it has a ‘talky’ bit in the middle that is different every single time I play it. As with that song, we recorded this song totally live, including the lead vocal, just did a few takes, each version being a different length and with a different middle section, and then I picked one to layer a bit of acoustic guitar and jazz organ over and that was that.
The next two tracks – ‘Forever Your Love’ and ‘Oversea, Underland’ – will be released early in 2026. I plan to record different, longer versions of each of them for the next album.
As with Here Comes The Actual Band, the Actual Band on these recordings comprised myself (vocals, guitars, a bit of keyboards), Mar K (The Ethical Debating Society and The Charlemagnes) on bass, Lily Rae (Fightmilk) on drums.
What have you been up to in 2025?
Honestly, 2025 was a bit of a slow year. It began full of enthusiasm and plans and a string of really good gigs, supporting Shilpa Ray, The Messthetics and House of All and then playing on the main stage at CroCroLand Festival – but then nothing happened for a while. As usual I’ve also been playing with all-the-bands, but there too I’ve played far fewer gigs this year than usual. BUT they have all been very good ones.
And what are your plans for next year?
I have quite a bit of stuff already planned with “other” bands, involving gigs and tours across the UK and Europe, but nothing I can announce right now, probably. But as for my own songs and gigs from the world of Charley Stone the #Artist… well… two singles are pencilled for early in the year, and then I need to go and do some more recording. Who can say, Viewers?
What have been your musical highlights of the year from other bands/artists?
Firstly, the latest album from Emily Breeze, and the three wonderful gigs I saw her play with her wonderful band. Honestly can’t believe she’s not playing big theatres and appearing on television etc. Ditto Slime City, who are pretty much the perfect band, let’s be honest. Also, everyone needs to look out for Janey Starling’s new “riot metal” band Yakkie – they’re amazing!
Christmas: The most wonderful time of the year or a big bag of humbug?
I’m not a massively Christmassy person, mainly because the day itself feels a bit overwhelming, being inside with lots of people all day and not actually doing anything. But it’s nice to have a week or so when everyone sort of pauses and hunkers down and has nice food and puts fairy lights on etc, isn’t it
Stream and download ‘I’ve Gotta Know’ below
Make a donation to HOPE not hate
Charley Stone: Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp
More tracks from this year’s calendar:
1: Piney Gir & Parenthesis Dot Dot Dot
2: Syd Howells
3: The Happy Hollow
4: Stephen Evens
5: Ombudsmen
6: The Scaramanga Six
7: Dextro + Rubber Oh
8: Craig Fortnam
9: Salt The Snail
10: Cerys Hafana
11: bis x Art Brut
12: Gemma Rogers
13: The Joyzine Christmas Band, Gift Box, Skink + Adam & Elvis
14: DRIFT. + Annie Gardiner
Check back tomorrow for another free festive download!
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