Cleopatra Records was founded in 1992 by long-time music fan, Brian Perera. Brian acquired his love for the music business by becoming an active participant in the Los Angeles club scene through the 80's and 90's. The label was officially launched with three releases, Pressurehed (a space rock band from the San Francisco bay area) followed by the release of Motorhead’s ‘On Parole’ album, which had long been out of print. The label’s third release was actually a series of re-issues by electronic pioneers Kraftwerk. From the start, this was not going to be your typical LA Indie Rock outfit. The label philosophy was simple – It was a label run by music fans for music fans.
In the beginning the betting money was on the label going bust from its aggressive and widely diverse release schedule, but thankfully that never happened. At present, the catalogue boasts almost over 2,000 titles and remains USA based Caroline Distribution's top selling label. To his credit, Perera still does over ninety percent of the label's A&R work. At the end of the day, every band, license and deal crosses his desk, with over one hundred and fifty of them occurring in 2000 alone.
During the label's first few years there were releases by ‘Gothic Rock’ mainstays Christian Death. It is these releases that created the label’s ‘Gothic’ image, despite the presence of other album releases by Kraftwerk, Nico, The Adicts, 45 Grave, Sigue Sigue Sputnik and countless others during this same period. The label earned the reputation of being the single most influential factor in the resurgence of ‘Gothic Rock’ in the 90’s, attracting legions of fans around the globe. The labels eclectic releases defied the conventional record industry wisdom of the time.
In 1993 Brian Perera hired friend, music fan and industry veteran Brian Mcnelis to take over the company's marketing and promotions. McNelis's marketing, management and promotions company ‘par@site’ remained autonomous, handling various work for other clients. His previous history in marketing and distribution with industry giant Warner/Elektra/Atlantic Corporation (WEA) empowered the fledgling indie. McNelis ultimately signed on with Cleopatra exclusively at the end of 1995, and since that time, the companies have combined offices and resources.
Cleopatra as a label diversified a fair bit during the period that followed, as they went on to launch the techno/dance imprint Hypnontic Recordings (1994) and the progressive/classic label Purple Pyramid (1997). A further label imprint, Deadline (1999) explored the glam/metal arena, and then X-Ray (2000) unearthed underground hip-hop.
The label also pursued an interest in the re-issue of timeless and classic recordings by the likes of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald and created the ‘Stardust’ and ‘Golden Lane’ label imprints (2000) to deal with that area of music. The label’s continued growth and diversity continued to astound the conventional record industry.
In the year 2000, X-Ray released the first solo album from SX-10, fronted by Cypress Hill's Sen Dog, followed by the V & Legacy debut album, which boasted guests performances by such respected artists as DJ Lethal of Limp Bizkit, George Clinton and members of both Cypress Hill and Pharcyde.
During the evolution of the Cleopatra Label Group, quite a few titles in it’s repertoire, by the very eclectic nature of the music they carry, have been overlooked to a great extent, because few retail outlets had the vision required to promote them, and thus lacked the ability to deal with, and recognize the fact that these were potential best-sellers! This led to many of Cleopatra’s best works (in our opinion) being ‘missed’ by all but the most discerning and musically aware mail-order operations – which is, of course, where CD Services came in. With our knowledge and customer connections in the ‘Space-Rock’ scene, it was a relatively easy task to review, feature, promote and sell in large quantities, artists like Farflung, Pressurehed, Nik Turner, Brain and others like them. The public became aware of albums by these bands first and foremost because of prominent reviews that were featured in our specialist catalogues. Further to the ‘Space-Rock’ titles on the label, CD Services became the only outlet in the whole of the UK and Europe to review and promote ‘Electronic Music’ releases on Cleopatra, all of which were completely ‘unknown’ to the ‘Ambient’ & ‘Synth’ music fan-bases of the time, until the arrival of our extensive and enthusiastic reviews in our specialist ‘EM’ catalogues - Leading examples include: Surface 10 and Synaesthesia (America’s answer to Edgar Froese & Tangerine Dream), Komakino (a Japanese Vangelis) and the brilliantly ‘Ambient’ Dilate. Across quite wide musical horizons, CD Services became the leading outlet for most of he label’s lesser-known names, as distributor after distributor tried and failed with general distribution to shops in the UK. To a certain extent, the music on these album is still largely falling on deaf ears, and in many cases the label themselves don’t even give them prominence in their own catalogues as being among their best sellers. However, the story is quite different for us at CD Services - To this day, Cleopatra is a label we still excel in, creating strong interest from music fans who would otherwise never have the opportunity to experience the wealth of great, relatively unknown, music that this label has to offer.