Nepol Records
Dan Efex came up in the crucible of the early-90s Midwest rave scene — the Chicago and Milwaukee circuit where hardcore, hard trance, acid and Goa collided at warehouse parties and all-nighters. Like the best DJs of that era, his legend was built on cassette: his 1995 mixtape “Plixx” opened with a run of answering-machine messages from a who’s-who of Midwest rave promoters and DJs before tearing into ninety minutes of hard trance, and collectors on Discogs still call it one of their all-time favorite tapes. “The S.E.T.I. Project” followed — spray-painted promo cassettes, originally paired with a Thee-O mix on the Biohazard label until the master was lost in the mail — alongside tapes like “Disco Inferno,” “Solar,” and, as DJ Efex The Assailant, “3rd Attempt: The Fast Track To Hell.”
The wax followed the tapes. In 1996 his acid-trance collaboration with J. Scott G. — “Onyx / Sierra” — was pressed in Germany, and along the way his name shared releases with Chicago legend Terry Mullan (“Inertia”) and West Coast hardcore icon Ron D Core (“Angel of Death”). In 2003 he brought his sound to Nepol Records with “The Prayr / Cyclones” (NEPOL 004) — both sides written, produced and engineered by Dan Efex, mastered by John at Scrunch Recordings.
Across three decades and a family of aliases, the through-line is pure Chicago: relentless, psychedelic, built for the floor. His mixography — dozens of tapes and mixes from 1993 onward — is lovingly preserved online, a time capsule of the Midwest’s hardest-dancing years.