Danny L Harle releases his highly-anticipated new album Cerulean. The album marks his first full-length release on XL Recordings and is his most definitive artistic statement to date. Following 2021’s immersive Harlecore project, Harle considers Cerulean his true debut. “This is my debut album,” he says. “It really is the big one.”
Cerulean is a voyage into vast, alien sonic landscapes where speaker-blowing bass and euphoric trance synths meet classical harmonies, tactile sound design and Harle’s own field recordings of waves lapping against the shore. It embodies Harle’s pursuit of melancholic euphoria - a blend of megalophobic majesty and raw humanity - inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, existing “on the threshold between dreams and reality.”
Seeking “the best melodies sung by the best voices,” Harle enlisted an exceptional cast of collaborators, including Caroline Polachek, Clairo, Julia Michaels, PinkPantheress, Oklou and MNEK, alongside newer voices like kacha, and even his own daughters. Across 13 tracks, Cerulean balances dancefloor power with emotional resonance to brilliant effect. Meanwhile, Harle’s wide-ranging influences - from hedonistic rave to the haunting Dark Souls video game series, Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, and Renaissance and Elizabethan composers like Monteverdi, Thomas Tallis, and William Byrd - underpin the album’s dazzling, genre (and centuries)-spanning focus.
Born in North London, Harle’s early exposure to avant-garde concerts and chart pop shaped his singular musical lens. Emerging from the visionary PC Music collective with 2013’s “Broken Flowers,” he became one of pop’s most adventurous producers, collaborating with the likes of Charli XCX, Carly Rae Jepsen, Oklou, FKA twigs, Florence and The Machine, Shygirl, Dua Lipa, and co-executive producing Caroline Polachek’s acclaimed Pang, and subsequently earning a GRAMMY nomination for his work on “Desire, I Want to Turn Into You.”
Fusing rave maximalism, classical composition, and emotional depth, Cerulean is the latest evolution of Harle’s artistic journey, distilling his lifelong fascination with beauty, wonder, and the unknown. “I just have this mad desire to make my own favourite music,” he says. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
