Here are the best mixes we published in 2016

Here at Mixmag we see it as our duty to provide you with the best in dance music and club culture. Our music section houses a wealth of exclusives in the form of premieres, mixes and interviews with new and upcoming artists.

This year we launched the Impact series which shines a light on the producers and selectors making serious moves and the people we think are going to shape the music you listen to over the coming months. Via a mix and interview, we've featured the likes of Denis Sulta, Debonair and DJ Lag in the series and next year we aim to showcase even more unstoppable talent.

Of course there's our flagship In Session mix series that brings you the biggest and best artists, straight to your headphones. If they've mad their mark and continue to do so, then we get them in. 2016 has brought forward some really fucking good mixes and a quick glance back unearths pure auditory fire. We've racked our brains and chosen the best ten mixes from across mixmag.net and compiled them nicely in one list for you.

There have been some amazing mixes from across the dance music world, so shouts to people like RA, Fact, XLR8R and Groove for doing the business, but for this one we thought we'd keep things in house. At the end of the day, the quality speaks for itself. Enjoy.

Our list starts with an exclusive like no other. As a duo, Paris, IL are one of the newest acts on the list but their story is perhaps the most striking. Two creative directors in the form of Guillaume Berg and Virgil Abloh combined to bring the different sounds of their respective worlds together and the result is an electronic blend of the two. Berg has his roots in Bromance Records and is one of France's most celebrated creative minds while Abloh runs things at US brand OFF White and DONDA, Kanye West's agency. Their Impact mix is a deep yet danceable combination of the pair's style and instead of letting us interview them, they interviewed each other and sent us the results. This is the definition of eclectic and one of our favourite pieces of musical content this year.

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Not only was REZZ's mix our biggest Impact of the year, it was also the biggest of any mix we put out. That's saying something for an artist who's only really made her official debut in 2015. The Skrillex-approved, techno-slanted producer and selector is really hot property in America at the moment and is being tipped as the next star to take the nation by storm. With a sound that splices OWSLA, Mau5trap and Gesaffelstein (she included two of his tracks in the mix) it's refreshing to see a producer with a largely brash style, move above the EDM ranks with something more gritty and credible than the norm. Watch out for REZZ she's going to be slaying a nightclub near you soon.

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Will he play techno, will he play disco, will he play house? That's the thing with Spencer Parker, you just don't know which direction he's going to take and that's the beauty of his DJ sets. Hailing from Croydon, the Berlin-based artist is an office favourite and his Work Them imprint has been responsible for some of the freshest cuts this year. As BROTHERHOOD he channels the Berghain sound and it's a techno affair but for his debut In Session mix, he merged all his styles for an hour of power. Note the mix into Floorplan's 'Baby Baby', one of the most inventive blends we've heard all year. 2017 holds more amazing music and more amazing sets, we can't wait to be a part of both.

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Australia has been typified by two things this year. The first is the ongoing struggle with lockout laws in Sydney, a rule that seems like some archaic, dystopian nightmare to the rest of the world. The second is Mall Grab, the producer and selector who's exploded this year and found his way into the spotlight across the globe. His style of house music is one that's centred around fun. The productions are crisp and spanky, the sounds are bouncy and jubilant and the DJ sets span tempo and genre with ease. His Impact mix is all of the above, it's a care-free set that wants you to do one thing, dance. And dance you have, it's one of our most popular mixes of 2016. Easy to see why.

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Peggy Gou is another artist that's blown up in a very short space of time. Her productions should be filed under 'fire' if anything and releases via Rekids, Phonica and Technicolour have raised eyebrows and dancefloors all year round. In our Impact feature back in May we stated that "Peggy stands as the first female Korean DJ to play outside the country and release on internationally-based labels." and that is an accolade worth shouting about. She's taken her analogue, focused sound all over Europe, most notably with a debut stop at Panorama Bar, a set we really, really wish we'd witnessed. Her mix is a delight, one that hops gleefully from style to style and anyone who includes Ricardo Villalobos, Schatrax, Ron Trent and Pearson Sound in a mix gets a thumbs up from us.

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Denis Sulta been bubbling away for about 18 months but this year he's fully started to realise his potential as the next heir to Scotland's electronic throne. 'It's Only Real' has been a breakaway success but since then he's released a new wave of glitzy, synth-led weapons. 'Nein Fortiate' and 'Dubelle Oh XX' have torn their way around clubs and so has Sulta, he's been booked to play a massive amount of gigs including sessions at Sub Club in his beloved hometown. His label Sulta Selects promises to play home to a lot more music next year but here we focus on his Impact mix and it launched the whole series nearly 12 months ago. A perfect introduction to his sound, style and indeed the series.

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Honey Dijion is the embodiment of power. The transgender DJ is one of the most celebrated selectors of the year and we've been at the front of the crowd dancing with her, smiling ear-to-ear. She's held down residencies at Cielo in New York and Smart Bar in Chicago and most notably, she's a regular fixture at the NYC Downlow at Glastonbury. Her set this year at our favourite club in the UK was an absolute delight and one that was bursting at the seams with energy and feverish intent. When we ran her In Session mix in January this year, we spoke about her Downlow performance from 2015 and now we talk about her 2016 set. Basically, if you don't know then get to know. We love you Honey!

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Abyss X makes extreme electronic music. It sounds visceral on record and when she performs live, a whirlwind of experimentalism that sends sparks flying. The interview she gave for our Impact series is a fascinating insight into her process and the mix she provided to go along with it is the perfect soundtrack. She lays her influences bare, journeying through myriad sounds that you wouldn't normally associate with experimental club music. It's an exceptional selection, one that displays a gift for out-there DJing that goes neatly alongside her talent for out-there songwriting. Lock into this and let yourself be transported.

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The Martinez Brothers and Disclosure may be sibling duos that have taken over the house world but when it comes to techno, there's one pairing that have slammed it this year. Yes the Zenker Brothers, consisting of Dario and Marco Zenker, are techno titans in every sense of the term. They run the show at Ilian Tape and celebrated a decade of music this year, alongside some amazing releases of their own. We've been after a mix from the pair for a while and at the end of the year, they delivered the goods. It's an extended session, one that clocks in just under two hours, making it the longest mix we've ran this year. It's a ferocious, nail-bitingly good excursion from the Brothers Zenker and one we've been waiting anxiously for. It was well worth that wait.

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And here we have it. Our favourite mix of the year comes from an artist who positively slayed this year. Helena Hauff is a force to be reckoned with and while her music isn't for everyone, it's captured the imagination of clubland and drawn people to clubs to go and thrash it out to some razor-sharp electro and techno cuts. Like The Zenker Brothers, we've wanted Helena to go In Session for a long time but no-one could have quite predicted what she would deliver. We'll let Helena describe for herself:

"It's a little tribute to the sound of Frankfurt of the late 80's early 90's (Dorian Gray Club/Torsten Fenslau), which became very influential on trance!," Helena writes us. "I've been digging this stuff for years now and I thought it might be nice to put it all in a mix together. By the way, Lhasa doesn't really belong to it but just seemed to fit too well!"

It's riotous, it's relentless and it's a really special mix. They don't come around like this very often and we're not sure any mix from anywhere can top it. Thank's Helena.

Like we said in the original article: 'Nobody does it quite like the Hauff'. We stand by that statement, more so than ever.

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