- At least among his peers, you could call Daniel Harle a classicist. He was trained in composition at Goldsmiths, after all, but the music he makes as Danny L Harle is also more straightforward than the rest of the PC Music crew. Check what's listed under "Influences" on his Facebook: Stravinsky and Scooter appear side by side. But Harle isn't the stuffy sidekick to A.G. Cook's sugary, romantic abandon; the ultimate take away from "Broken Flowers," a carbonated dance single that's been bopping around since 2013, is the wealth of sun-soaked melodies he can build around its zippy eight-chord loop. It takes the shape of a sweetly soulful house anthem, but in Harle's hands EDM is as much an overtone as disco.
The first release from PC Music's partnership with Columbia Records, Broken Flowers repackages its two-year-old title track with an alternate version and two originals. It's the most substantial release in Harle's solo career, and reveals a greater range to his sound than the elated "Broken Flowers" implies. Where that song has the depth of a jacuzzi (albeit a hot and bubbly one), "Without You" discovers a sea teeming with life between The Knife's Silent Shout and Rustie's Glass Swords. It's a beautiful piece of electronic pop, to put it plainly. But then there's "Forever" and "Awake For Hours," two tracks that come up short repackaging all-too-familiar trance synths and manic sound design. Neither one offers the expanded horizons of "Without You," and "Awake For Hours" manages to make the pop mastery of "Broken Flowers" into a twitching, gassy jumble. Despite those shortcomings, the high points of Broken Flowers are lofty, posing Harle as an eloquent voice from PC Music.
Tracklist01. Broken Flowers
02. Forever
03. Without You
04. Awake For Hours