2015: The Mixmag Awards

Here at Mixmag, we go to our fair share of afterparties (it's in our contracts). Some of them you arrive at thinking "what the fuck possessed me to come to this depraved flat that's playing emo-techno at 7am" and you either leave or come to the sad realisation that this is you until lunchtime. Sometimes though, you strike gold, you find that perfect spot after the rave where the tunes are spot-on, the location is calm yet interesting and the vibe is perfect. These parties are rare but during ADE this year, we're pretty sure we found the one. As we left Circo Loco's mammoth party at Loveland, we were approached by Seth Troxler who asked us if we wanted to come to a party on a crane. Naturally we were intrigued but what followed were the best five hours of the week. Faralda Crane near the docklands housed a small, 100-capacity room at the top of some winding stairs. In that room were windows overlooking the Amsterdam docks and Troxler was churning out romantic, brain-soothing tunes. Sure you could explore the crane and climb to even dizzier heights but that little room housed a free bar, beautiful music and the owner, who reduced us to tears after he claimed to have made his majestic snake-skin boots himself (guess you had to be there). It's hard to really put into words how good this party was but we found clubland's version of heaven and we'll never forget it.

Seth Troxler comes out with so many gems that he could probably take second, third, fourth and fifth place in this category, too. But it's his one comparing K to brown that made us chuckle the most and decide there and then, way back in March, that he'd be picking up this monumental award (thank us later, Seth). If you're wondering why on earth he said it, he was dishing out words of wisdom on drug use in dance music, saying he'd much prefer people to get high on ecstasy rather than the "fucked" horse tranquiliser. After all, who wouldn't rather see a raver thinking they're the little fella from The Snowman than - if the bump of K was a bit more of a whack - something out of Resident Evil? If that's how you feel, too, take Seth's words of advice and "just take ecstasy and trip". It won't be last you hear from him, though.

Kelela's debut mixtape 'Cut 4 Me' was one of our favourite records of 2013, so we were very hyped to see it arrive in physical format this year. Of course, as a crew defined by their constant progression and trailblazing at the cutting edge of club music, it wouldn't be very "Fade To Mind" to put out an unaltered collection of two-year-old tracks (two years in FTM terms is practically a millennium for us mortals after all), so we got a whole new batch of remixes as part of the deluxe-edition release. This bonus disc epitomises the label's passion for evolution, with a number of the producers responsible for the original mixes returning to rework and update the tracks into new versions. It's a mindset that makes everything they release sound fresh as fuck, which is why this selection of remixes stand out as the best of the year.

Some things in this world are unfair: generic EDM is wildly popular, Donald Trump appears to enjoy his life, Mesut Özil isn't recognised as one of the best midfielders of his generation, and so on. It should always be a point of celebration, then, when any of these injustices are overturned, so we were pleased to see Richard L. Spencer pick up a big novelty-sized cheque for $24,000 this year. He's the former lead vocalist and saxophone player of The Winstons, and one of the men responsible for the widely-sampled Amen Break drum pattern. You've all heard it, it's featured in basically every jungle, d'n'b and breaks track ever, propelling energy into the mix with its skipping rhythm. However, he had never seen a penny for his efforts until this year when a crowdfunding campaign started by breakbeat DJ Martyn Webster raised some cash to reward Spencer for his seminal work. Praying hands emoji, amen.