Danny L Harle doesn’t release solo material often, but when he does, it tends to redraw the map. With “Starlight,” his first new single since 2021’s Harlecore, the hyperpop architect returns not just to the spotlight, but to his own orbit—one where melancholy doesn’t cancel out joy, it crystallizes it.
“Starlight” is the first glimpse of Harle’s new chapter under XL Recordings, and it arrives with a familiar voice: PinkPantheress. The two artists have a shared language of shimmer and restraint, and here they push that further. The song hovers between euphoria and ache, built on glistening synth lines, trance-indebted rhythms, and melodies that sound like they’ve been pulled through a dream and rewired for the club.
Harle has said the track is shaped by everything from Monteverdi and Dowland to Gigi D’Agostino and Alice Deejay—a wild lineage, but it makes sense in context. The song has the emotional shape of a 16th-century lament, but it’s coated in the polish and pulse of Y2K dancefloor nostalgia. PinkPantheress floats above it all, delivering each phrase with the kind of delicate cool that has defined her rise—ornamental, yes, but never overworked.
There’s a generosity to how Harle builds space around her vocals. He isn’t showcasing a feature; he’s designing a setting. The result is transportive in a way that’s quietly radical. No drops, no climaxes—just movement. Just emotion.
Harle’s return as a solo artist doesn’t feel like a statement. It feels like an opening. “Starlight” may sit at the intersection of several eras and aesthetics, but it never feels theoretical. It feels lived in, melodic in a way that cuts deeper than trends. If this is the start of a larger body of work, then we might be witnessing one of pop’s most elusive craftsmen stepping into something more personal—and possibly more profound.