Platipus Records
Platipus was a producer’s label before it was a trance institution. Simon Berry began the catalogue in London in 1993 while making the records himself, then built a visual and musical identity around Art Of Trance, Union Jack, POB, Quietman, Technossomy and later artists. Acid lines, psychedelic detail, melody and immaculate sleeve identity made Platipus recognisable in a specialist shop before the needle touched the vinyl.
A producer builds his own outlet
The early Platipus story is unusually direct: studio work comes first, the company grows around it.
Deeper Than Deep
Simon Berry was working around the rave press and making music in London when the Art Of Trance Deeper Than Deep EP became the launch point for Platipus. The first catalogue issue, PLAT 01, arrived in March 1993.
Berry later remembered the early track escaping the bedroom-scale setup and finding its way into DJ bags, with Carl Cox among the people who responded strongly to the material. That early validation mattered because the label was not being built around a marketing concept. It was being built around records Berry wanted to make and records he thought belonged beside them.
The next releases quickly established that the house style was not one melody or one BPM. Poltergeist’s Vicious Circles, Art Of Trance material and the first Union Jack record all shared a fascination with long arrangements, acid detail, atmosphere and a slightly psychedelic sense of structure.
The catalogue finds its own language
Platipus grows from Simon Berry’s own projects into a wider British and international trance platform.
Two projects, one studio philosophy
The founder’s own records are not vanity releases; they establish the language used to judge the rest of the label.
Union Jack: throw everything in
Union Jack paired Simon Berry with Claudio Giussani. Berry later described Two Full Moons & A Trout as a record made without pre-deciding its genre: ethnic vocal textures, orchestral drama, unusual key changes, African percussion, acid movement and psychedelic sound design all went into the same track.
That lack of rigid genre planning is exactly why the record remains useful historically. It sits between progressive house, trance, acid and the more psychedelic branch developing around Goa culture.
Red Herring, Cactus and the wider Union Jack catalogue continued the same principle: big melodic ideas but enough rhythmic and acid pressure to work for DJs from Carl Cox to Sasha, Oakenfold and more underground trance selectors.
The Platipus signal
Three Platipus pillars — catalogue masters
The first two are auto-generated from Platipus Music catalogue masters; Madagascar uses the remastered Platipus Music master. Exact media IDs only.
Platipus • 1993Union Jack — Two Full Moons & A Trout
Platipus • 1995Union Jack — Red Herring
Platipus catalogueArt Of Trance — MadagascarA British answer that never sounded parochial
Platipus belongs in the UK rave story because it demonstrates how quickly British producers stopped merely importing continental trance ideas and began building distinctive labels of their own. Yet the catalogue remained deliberately European and psychedelic in outlook rather than trying to sound “British” for its own sake.
The label also proves how much packaging mattered in record-shop culture. A coherent visual language, catalogue numbering and a producer-led standard could persuade buyers to take a chance on unfamiliar artists.
Platipus still maintains its catalogue identity
The current Platipus Music portal routes listeners to the official catalogue, audio archive and video material, while Berry’s own interviews provide the strongest evidence for the label’s producer-led philosophy.
