Cerulean’s gorgeous gloom can’t escape its own echoes

Cerulean marks the British producer's first return to solo music since his 2021 debut, Harlecore. Stepping away from the hyperpop sugar rush of his first album, Harle dials down the tempo and mood by approximately 200%. Dreams are the central focus of his new record: he relies on muted synths, drum-less percussion, and long-winded progressions to conjure a dance club in the void. Most notably, he’s now joined by a cadre of pop stars, whose familiar voices are woven into the music like ghosts – fragments of Harle’s past coming back to define his new sound.

Harle unlocks something surprising and refreshing within the guest vocalists; PinkPantheress glides away from her signature cheekiness and instead nose-dives into nightcore and baroque on the glittery track, “Starlight” while Clairo – who usually melts into the warmth of her brassy lounge pop sound – is cold and isolated in her a cappella performance of “Facing Away”. Even Harle’s two young daughters get the spotlight, coming in either as neatly placed samples folding into the current of rushing water, or as lead singers. If one imagines each track like a vignette of a dream, then the familiar voices morphing into themselves as they guide the listener through their sleep are brilliant details. The collaborations feel personally tailored to Harle, who encouraged these all-stars to take a creative risk and bend to his style. And though it’s a record much more rooted in darkness than the pandemic-era ‘rave’ of Harlecore, it’s not as lonely.

Yet not much happens in Cerulean, save a couple dazzling moments. In trying to craft a consistent narrative with natural ebbs and flows, Harle disrupts the record’s steady, thudding beat only twice: on “Facing Away”, which happens way too early in the album, and on the gradual and warbling finale, “Teardrop in the Ocean”. Many tracks follow the same formula of chopping up some borrowed “ah’s” and “eh’s” from the hooks, folding them into the mandatory hypnotic dance breakdown between the verses. (“On and On”, “Te Re Re”, “Laa”.) “Azimuth” and “Raft In The Sea” are trance ballads with the same images — water, darkness, tears, isolation –repeated over and over again, leaving the listener halfway convinced Harle asked his co-writers to write a song based on the same five-word prompt. Even with the delicately placed samples of static, rushing water, hollow pipes, accordions, or laser synths to break up the repetition, Harle’s album is just a big, Eurodance-y blur.

Perhaps the pop industry experience in between records seeped too deep into Danny L Harle’s brain, muting the unfiltered, feverish, maniacal noise of Harlecore. Cerulean, while technically masterful, is just a fine, pleasant dream to pass the time.