DANNY L HARLE - Cerulean

It's a pleasure to come across a cover photo conceived as an AI version of a Renaissance painting, especially when, beyond the carefully staged surroundings, you can glimpse a stiff hint of hesitation on the protagonist's face. Far from being accidental, the composition is, if anything, the apotheosis of a plastic, duplicitous taste, half conceptual ambition and half postmodern cheekiness, because shuffling the deck is always more fun than taking yourself seriously.

Here he is, then, Daniel Jack Eisner Harle, the usual scion of (very) well-to-do London, portrayed in his own studio-spaceship as a space-age composer, amid a digital console and that instrument leaning against the chair which looks suspiciously like an arpeggione, the rare bowed string instrument used in nineteenth-century Vienna. It's no coincidence, since Danny studied classical music at university but then chose to devote himself to electronic music alongside his equally well-off schoolmate A. G. Cook to create the Pc Music universe, one of the most interesting microcosms of the 2010s.

But it's only by taking his distance that Danny has found the balance, if we can call it that, of the reckless idea of pairing a futuristic ambient-baroque melodicism with eurotrance beats so gauche they sound like they came flying out the window of Andrew Tate's villa in Romania. There's no point denying it: "Cerulean" boldly rides the line between art and bad taste, coming off as grating to purists yet dizzyingly exhilarating.

The secret lies in guiding the listen through peaks and valleys without ever letting it slip away. The dramatic opener "Noctilucence" carves out synthetic rifts worthy of the pounding rain in "Blade Runner", while the jittery crescendo of "Starlight" drowns PinkPantheress's subtle voice under a lashing 170bpm drop: these are the two sides of a listen forever split between visions of the future and a shameless revival for millennials raised on "Arriva Progressiva". Pop songwriter Julia Michaels drifts adrift on "Raft In The Sea" amid glossy oceanic synths and medieval-sounding horns, while Poland's Kacha imagines herself a new Diva Plavalaguna from "The Fifth Element" on "Te Re Re", and the fascination with Eastern Europe continues even more markedly with the sticky accordion hook of "Island (Da Da Da)" and then within the digital frictions of "Laa".

There's no shortage of heavy hitters, because if Cook has Charli XCX, Danny has Caroline Polachek, a longtime friend for whom he co-produced both "Pang" and "Desire, I Want To Turn Into You"; here she is, alluring and dramatic, on the pulsing "Azymuth", then laid out with melancholy over the trance ballad "On & On". But Danny doubles down with superstar Dua Lipa, here riding the aerobics-tank-of-an-Eighties throwback "Two Hearts", coming across as far more aggressive (and focused) than the lukewarm "Radical Optimism".

"Cerulean" still retains a demanding yet singer-songwriter-like touch, as in the intimacy of the brief "Fading Away", sung by Clairo, or the tube-fed instrumental confession "O Now Am I Truly Lost". But towering above everything is an electro-medieval melodic blend that at times recalls, at least by elective association, the approach of "choke enough", the surprising debut by French artist Oklou, who indeed guests on "Crystallise My Tears" alongside popwriter MNEK, who usually handles FLO and Sugababes – a track that, more than any other, shows off the unruly imagination of a serial kleptomaniac of modern electronic music.

Instead, Danny saves one last surprise for the grand finale "Teardrop In The Ocean", a moment endowed with a majestic, emotional production, purpose-built to well up your eyes with tears – and just as the track settles, all it takes is a quick glance above the mouse clicks and the clouds on the horizon to catch the smiling face of the late great SOPHIE.

Danny L Harle, in short, has talent and plenty of nerve, fishing from just about everywhere, engineering improbable clashes between "Ray Of Light" and "The Starrr Of The Queen Of Life", between the Academy and Gigi D'Agostino, having a wild amount of fun before even thinking about the listener. Divisive? 100%. Elegant? Not a damn bit. Exactly what's needed on the dancefloor in the year 2026.

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20/02/2026