FKA Twigs, Skepta and Young Fathers were among the winners at this year’s AIM Awards. The awards, set up in 2010 to recognise the achievements of independent artists and labels, also dished out prizes to Swans, Enter Shikari and Jungle.
FKA Twigs took home the Independent Track of the Year prize for her track Two Weeks, whereas Young Fathers’ White Men Are Black Men Too won the award for Best Difficult Second Album. Neither artist could be in attendance, but Noel Gallagher turned up to hand Jungle the PPL Award for Most Played New Independent Act and joked: “This isn’t Liam, by the way.”
Swans won the prize for Hardest Working Band, and in a video acceptance speech, Michael Gira thanked both plumbers and Amazon Prime workers. MC and producer Skepta was awarded the Outstanding Contribution To Music Award thanks to his tireless work supporting the grime scene.
Elsewhere, Transgressive Records took home the prize for Independent Label of the Year, forward-thinking rock band Enter Shikari’s fourth album The Mindsweep was deemed to be Independent Album of The Year and Wolf Alice won the award for Independent Breakthrough of the Year.
Full list of winners
Best Small Label (in association with Disc Manufacturing Services): Erased Tape Records
Best Difficult Second Album (in association with XFM): Young Fathers - White Men Are Black Men Too
Special Catalogue Release of the Year (in association with Amazon Music): Cities of Darkscorch Boardgame
Hardest Working Band or Artist: Swans
Golden Welly Award for Best Independent Festival (in association with AIF, voted for by readers of DIY): Brainchild Festival
Independent Breakthrough of the Year: Wolf Alice
Indie Champion (in association with CI): Marc Riley, BBC 6 Music
Independent Video of the Year (in association with Vevo): Flying Lotus – Never Catch Me
Best Live Act (in association with Jack Daniel’s, voted for by visitors to Songkick): All Time Low
Independent Track of the Year (in association with Spotify): FKA Twigs – Two Weeks
PPL Award for Most Played New Independent Act: Jungle
Independent Album of the Year (in association with dotFans): Enter Shikari – The Mindsweep
Independent Label of the Year (in association with Believe Digital): Transgressive Records
Pioneer Award (in association with The Orchard): Digby Pearson, Earache Records
Innovator Award (in association with Promostream): Peter Quicke, Matt Black and Jonathan More of Ninja Tune
Outstanding Contribution to Music (in association with Merlin): Skepta
