Harlecore＜Yellow With Black Splatter Vinyl＞

Like most members of the PC Music collective, Danny L. Harles releases were usually EPs or the purest unit of pop music, singles. After eight years on the scene, Harle delivered his debut album, and like his old friend and fellow collective member A.G. Cooks album Apple, his first full-length is high concept. A multimedia project revolving around a virtual club, Harlecore presents the tracks that the clubs four DJs spin. DJ Danny plays euphoric hardcore, DJ Mayhem plays gabber, DJ Ocean plays ambient, and MC Boing plays makina, a Spanish style similar to happy hardcore. While the albums conceptual complexities are almost intimidating, the actual music couldnt be further from it. Harlecore gives the blissful escapism of late-90s and early-2000s rave culture a 2020s update while staying lovingly true to its roots (the album cover could even pass for a vintage flyer). From the opening arpeggios and diva vocals of Where Are You Now to the massive stomp of Interlocked, Harle recaptures the sounds of the era perfectly. The album is also faithful to Harles own body of work: each track showcases the idealism, emotion, and playfulness of his previous singles, and the idea of a virtual experience thats more authentic than mere reality is pure PC Music. Harlecore boasts the flow of a mixtape and the rush of a night out, and its breathless pace rarely lets up. Energy level way past ten!, MC Boing shouts on the spring-loaded Boing Beat, one of Harles makina homages; later, the strobing Piano Song makes it even clearer how much the style influenced his music and the PC Music aesthetic. Harlecore finds balance in its extremes, and DJ Oceans crystalline chillout tracks (Oceans Theme and For So Long) provide a couple of well-placed breathers from the rest of the albums hyperactivity. DJ Dannys songs give Harlecore a surprising amount of heart, whether on massive yet bittersweet On a Mountain or Do You Remember, where sugary soprano vocals and pummeling beats combine in candy-coated nostalgia. DJ Mayhems All Night is another stratospheric highlight, as is Shining Stars, which helps bring the album to its rousing conclusion. Even without the conceptual framework, Harlecore is a briskly entertaining look back -- and forward -- at some of EDMs fizziest, gaudiest sounds. ~ Heather Phares