Calvin Harris sets ‘Funk Wav’ aside for ‘Nuh Ready Nuh Ready

Calvin Harris has set his ‘Funk Wav’ sound aside, and ‘Nuh Ready Nuh Ready’ makes the move plain — warmer, more tropical, and still no return to his electronic roots. By every indication it isn’t a passing detour either: this is the sound he’s sticking with, at least for now. The single landed 8 February on Columbia, featuring PARTYNEXTDOOR, as Harris’s first release of the year.

There was no advance teaser this time. Harris put up a moving billboard instead, a cartoon skull cycling across it, and kept the track’s sound a mystery until release day itself — a clean-slate start to the year, by the look of it.

Columbia, which has had Harris since 2007, gets this one too — it follows ‘How Deep Is Your Love (Remixes)’ there, the latest entry in a relationship now running more than a decade. PARTYNEXTDOOR, the Canadian rapper and songwriter riding shotgun on the feature, gives the catchy, hip hop-leaning cut its clearest foothold in the sound Harris is otherwise pulling away from. Stream it below.