Star of the year: Ten Walls

Hitting no 3 in the UK singles chart and a mainstay anthem of Ibiza, Ten Walls 'Walking With Elephants' was without doubt one of the biggest dance tracks of 2014. Two weeks before its major label-backed re-release in September, it had already racked up 1.7 millionSoundCloud plays, was getting an average of15,000 streams a day on Spotify in the UK alone, and had been aired 147 times on radio the week before – not too shabby for an instrumental! No doubt the initial sales projections were ritually burned overnight, but looking back, it should have been obvious that Marijus Adomaitis had a record of such era-defining magnitude coming.

Having produced under the underground moniker of Mario Basanov for five years, he reinvented himself as Ten Walls in the spring of 2013. Well-thumbed EPs soon followed via Dixon's evergreen Innervisions and the white-hot Life and Death imprint, including 2013 Ibiza smash 'Gotham'. Then, with five of those six tracks still on heavy rotation, Marijus retuned to his home town in Lithuania to create what would prove to be his magnum opus. Using the release to launch his own Boso label, 'Walking With Elephants' first arrived digitally in April, and since its meteoric rise the 32-year-old has been headlining international clubs and festivals with his evolving live AV show.

Reflecting on his rollercoaster 12 months, Marijus' standout moments include "Playing Zoo Project UK, DGTL in Amsterdam, Peacock in Paris and the Croatian festivals" – though ultimately, he'll remember 2014 as the year "when my music reached more people than ever, something that makes me very happy".

After December dates in the UK, Holland and South Africa, he'll be returning home to Vilnius for Christmas, before flying to New York at the personal request of Disclosure for their New Year's Eve party at Pier 94. His debut album as Ten Walls is in the pipeline, and owing to his success in 2014, its release is one of the most eagerly anticipated events on dance music's agenda. All in, not a bad year.

Ten Walls' highlights of 2014

'Walking With Elephants'
Has to be. Massive sound, massive track. Outright dance classic

'Chains And Shackles'
A Halloween-inspired techno excursion available for free via SoundCloud

BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix, September
Stirring, with a pulse. A typically spectral, two-hour DJ set