Art of Trance is Simon Berry, a trance music artist from England. Berry is also known as Poltergeist or Vicious Circles, and has been a member of the trance groups Clanger and Union Jack. In addition to his work as an artist, Berry is the head of Platipus Records. He cites Depeche Mode, Vangelis, Tomita, Orbital, 808 State, Jean Michel Jarre, Walter Wendy Carlos, Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Jeff Mills as his musical influences. Art of Trance is well known for the usage of samples of natural sounds (or electronically produced imitations of natural sounds) in his tracks, like bird singing (e.g. Easter Island, Kaleidoscope, Madagascar).

Simon Berry runs his solo trance project Art of Trance on the Platipus record label. Back in the mid 90’s 12” releases of classics such as Cambodia, Gloria and Octopus were hits with DJ’s and featured as strong points on the early Platipus Compilations. In 1998 Art of Trance released the single ‘Madagascar’ featuring the now seminal remix by CygnusX. In years to come ‘Madagascar’ received numerous makeovers and re-releases, and formed the core of Art of Trance’s second album, ‘