Cerulean

Danny L Harle’s Cerulean marks his first full-length release on XL Recordings and his most definitive artistic statement to date.

The album is a voyage into vast, alien sonic landscapes where speaker-blowing bass and euphoric trance synths meet intricate textures, from tactile sound design to field recordings of waves. It embodies Harle’s pursuit of melancholic euphoria – a blend of megalophobic majesty and raw humanity.

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 composers John Dowland, Thomas Tallis, and William Byrd – underpin the album’s dazzling, genre (and centuries)-spanning focus.

Emerging from the visionary PC Music collective with 2013’s ‘Broken Flowers,’ Harle became one of pop’s most adventurous producers, collaborating with Charli XCX, Carly Rae Jepsen, and co-executive producing Polachek’s acclaimed Pang, his credits span Oklou, FKA twigs, Shygirl, and Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism, earning him a GRAMMY nomination for Desire, I Want to Turn Into You. Fusing rave maximalism, classical composition, and emotional depth, Cerulean distills Harle’s lifelong fascination with beauty, wonder, and the unknown.