2015 has been a huge year for electronic dance music. Every genre pushed a raw, authentic sound design, with general exploration proving to be a constant theme – something that’s set to continue into 2016. Tracks tended to fork into either blunt force aggression or emotive melodies, with a few straddling the two beautifully, and even fewer breaking through all existing categories.
Trap cleansed its frequencies with aerated lead/bass combos, while dubstep leaned for intense, synthesized assaults; bass house picked up dubstep’s position as the new womp genre, throwing in four-on-the-floor to structure wobbles; future bass plucked inspiration straight from our dreams, and tropical undertones seeped into the mainstream, turning heads back towards the greater realm of dance music.
While it would be impossible to boil down the all of the year’s best remixes into just 10 tracks, here’s a list of those we thought captured the essence of 2015.