HARLECORE – Danny L Harle Releases New Album Via Mad Decent
After almost a decade of consistently inspiring contemporary popular music as a primary member of the PC Music collective, production for the likes of Charli XCX, Caroline Polachek, Clairo, Rina Sawayama and more, and within his own wildly imaginative works, Danny L Harle releases his most ambitious project to date. Harlecore is an immersive audiovisual experience, based in Club Harlecore; a digital space that allows users to experience euphoria in a number of different ways, traveling through each of the club’s contrasting rooms. Each genre of music within Club Harlecore is represented by a fantastical resident DJ. DJ Danny (Danny L Harle) inhabits Danny’s Euphoria Stadium playing uplifting hardcore, MC Boing (Danny L Harle x Lil Data) raps at the speed of light over makina in Boing’s Bounce Room, DJ Ocean (Danny L Harle x Caroline Polachek) floats around Ocean’s Floor, weaving ethereal ambient melodies, while DJ Mayhem (Danny L Harle x Hudson Mohawke) leads a trail of destruction in Mayhem’s Dungeon to the soundtrack of confrontational gabber. The ambition and scale of the project is matched only by its varied and full-bodied sound; Danny L Harle’s 13 track love letter to music that sounds the way he feels.
Opening with the dramatic heights of DJ Danny’s “Where Are You Now”, the album’s mission to present widescreen euphoria in all its guises is clear from the outset. A hyperactive exercise in the power of simplicity – DJ Danny provides many of the album’s truly emotional peaks through gargantuan synths and ascendent melodies, such as on lead single, “On A Mountain”. Infectious and thrillingly life-affirming, the track takes a bold, intoxicating hook and pairs it with a dynamic synth melody and clattering breaks to create a moment of real sonic escapism. This is offset by the maniacal makina of MC Boing, whose “Boing Beat” is set to cartoonish bounce sounds and heavy-duty kicks custom built to rattle the senses. Constructed around a relentless piano loop, MC Boing’s “Piano Song” enforces this adrenaline rush further, rapidly building out to an overwhelming cacophony of buzzsaw synths.
Living, breathing evidence of Danny L Harle’s passion for sonic extremes at all ends of the spectrum, Harlecore plays host to DJ Mayhem; a vicious muzzled beast, who hammers out energetic gabber to revellers 24 hours a day. “Interlocked” is a diamond edged cut of hi-octane sounds, punctuated by a rousing hook before being thrust into a pulverising vortex of single note synths, pounding percussion and heady melodics. It’s simple but no less devastating on a dancefloor. “All Night” works in a similarly propulsive fashion; taking space-like twinkles alongside a saccharine vocal line and demolishing it with brutal kicks and rumbling underlying tones. On the other end of the spectrum, DJ Ocean’s “Ocean’s Theme” is a sonically stunning soundscape, the track delves deep into Ocean’s Floor, providing a beautifully textured tapestry for DJ Ocean to weave her otherworldly melodies. A prime example of the restorative power of ambience, “For So Long” engulfs the listener, replenishing spent energy from the rest of Club Harlecore’s bold rhythms and exuberant synths; providing a tonic of vitality for the mind, body and spirit.
With Club Harlecore opening its doors for the first time this evening, today marks the unveiling of an impeccably planned creative project, finally brought to life by Danny and creatives from around the world such as Team Rolfes and E.G Huang. A truly explorative digital world, Harlecore is a chance to encounter euphoria in its purest form. A brand new experience, synthesised to represent an energy rush fabled in subcultures around the globe.
This is Harlecore. This music sounds the way I feel.
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