REVIEW: ‘Harlecore’ projects its listeners into an alternate dimension

Producer Danny L Harle has never been a fan of minimalism. This has never been truer than on his debut album “Harlecore,” a high-concept, euphoric trip to an alternate dimension where dance music reigns and a bouncy blue man with big white eyes does DJ sets surrounded by floating springs.

The bouncy blue man in question — MC Boing — is one of four resident DJs in Harle’s fictional night club, Club Harlecore. Alongside “Harlecore’s” release, Harle debuted an interactive website that allows fans to enter Club Harlecore and watch each of its resident DJs perform songs from the album. The rest of Club Harlecore’s cast is made up of a giant green jellyfish (DJ Ocean), a destructive fiery canine (DJ Mayhem) and Harle’s own DJ persona, shown on the album cover as a metallic maestro at the front of the whole project (DJ Danny).

In addition to being present in the album art, music videos and on the interactive Club Harlecore site, each of these four fictional DJs is credited alongside Harle in the album’s tracklist. While the credited DJ on a given song helps signify some of Harle’s collaborators, this tactic also effectively breaks up the tracklist into four subcategories.

Harle is a founding member of London-based record label and music collective PC Music, a label that, since its inception in 2013, has garnered attention for its hyper-glossy, futuristic take on pop music that exaggerates pop tropes to their extreme. While Harle’s PC Music peers like A.G. Cook and the late SOPHIE seek to push pop to its limit, Harle instead marries the experimentalism of PC Music with elements of more mainstream dance music, also pulling influences from dance sub-genres like ’90s rave and Eurodance.

While the concept and influences behind “Harlecore” are complex, its mission is simple: to provide the most transcendent, blissful listening experience possible. And for the most part, it achieves this goal — even if the high ultimately wears off.

“Harlecore’s” greatest strength lies in its singles. Although the album missteps slightly with opener “Where Are You Now,” a high-energy but unremarkable dance cut that feels watered-down by Harle’s standards, it recovers with the following four tracks: all released before the album and each spotlighting a different one of Club Harlecore’s DJ personas.

The first, “Boing Beat,” is a much more worthy album opener than its predecessor. In just one minute and 33 seconds, “Boing Beat” combines the fictional MC Boing’s grating, Crazy-Frog-esque chants with PC Music staple Hannah Diamond’s pristine and angelic vocal melodies. It’s a disorienting experience, but that’s intentional: Harle throws conflicting elements together and shakes them up until they explode in your face.

Harle continues strong with “Interlocked,” which starts as a glittery pop tune and morphs into a bass-heavy banger. If Club Harlecore was a real place, “Interlocked” would have the building supports shaking.

“Ocean’s Theme” is an ambient siren song and nice change of pace featuring enchanting vocals from frequent Harle collaborator Caroline Polachek. “On A Mountain,” the album’s lead single, is a euphoric dance anthem about finding someone else who is just as heartbroken as you: “We can lay here on a mountain, me and you / Can you feel it? This is something new / I can see your heart’s been broken too.”

All four tracks are enveloping and transportive, carrying the listener further into Harle’s surreal world and showcasing just how versatile Harle is.

Here, however, is where “Harlecore” begins to falter.

While none of the remaining tracks are bad, most don’t bring anything truly new or exciting to the table. Apart from the particularly PC-Music-inspired “All Night” and the anthemic “Take My Heart Away,” the album stays frustratingly within the sonic realm established by its singles. Although cycling through sounds and DJ personas makes the album’s first leg exhilarating, Harle shows his cards a bit too quickly.

“Piano Song” and “Car Song” harken back to the delectable chaos of “Boing Beat” but fall short by comparison, especially since the novelty of MC Boing’s bizarre delivery has worn off. “Do You Remember” and “Shining Stars” are fun but empty. Harle takes all his risks right off the bat then doesn’t dare to venture further.

But even if “Harlecore’s” magic wears off before its run time is over, it’s hard to fault an album that has so much fun along the way. Harle doesn’t take himself too seriously — for proof, look no further than his brief, cheeky tweets.

Lyrics are simple and repetitive, their primary purpose being to accompany Harle’s intricate production. Sentiments never get much deeper than “I want you all night” or “‘Cause we’re shining stars tonight,” but they don’t need to. “Harlecore” is here to capture the in-the-moment feeling of a night on the dance floor and transport listeners into Harle’s fantasy.

So although our legs start to get tired by the end of the night, “Harlecore’s” commitment to escapism and its immersive universe is enough to keep us dancing through it all.