Calvin Harris has been teasing new material – dropping a snippet from a new country track. Check it out below.
The teaser was shared on Instagram last night (March 5) and is called ‘Smoke The Pain Away’.
The brief clip sees the musician and DJ inside a studio, playing an intricate guitar melody and singing a reflective country-inspired verse. “Eyes sparkle like sun in June / Grow up and wait for you / Wide awake in a hotel room / Thinkin’, ‘Oh, what I could do’,” he sings.
“Too late, I’ve been up for days / I can’t even see straight / No, I can’t smoke the pain away,‘ he adds.
In the caption, he confirmed the title of the song and told fans that the full release is “coming”. Check it out below.
The track marks Harris’ first major return to vocals after several years. A new description of the song reads: “This marks a step in his musical evolution, expanding beyond his DJ roots into a genre-blending space that reflects his desire to push creative boundaries.”
It also explains that the upcoming single is set to come as “a celebration of artistic freedom, weaving together influences from his past with exciting new sounds.”
While it isn’t yet clear when the single is set to arrive, or whether it will be a part of a country-inspired album, it is known that the track will mark the first new music from the Scottish DJ since his Ellie Goulding collaboration ‘Free’ – a rousing 2024 summer anthem with stabs of house piano and a euphoric chorus.
Since then, he has also shared a remix of his 2016 Rihanna collaboration ‘This Is What You Came For’. This arrived in November and was dubbed the ‘Calvin Harris VIP Mix – Amazon Music Original’.
The original track was co-written by Taylor Swift, under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg, during the period that she was dating Harris. It also marked the third collaboration between Harris and Rihanna, after the colossal hit ‘We Found Love’ and 2012’s ‘Where Have You Been’.
In other Calvin Harris news, the artist picked up the Best Electronic prize at the 2024 MTV Europe Music Awards in Manchester, defeating the likes of David Guetta, Disclosure and Fred Again… He also recently appeared to have scrapped a rumoured collaboration with Miley Cyrus called ‘Ocean’, and revealed that he plans to quit DJing when he turns 50.
The post Calvin Harris teases new country song ‘Smoke The Pain Away’ – featuring himself on vocals and guitar appeared first on NME.