Against all odds, Calvin Harris potentially put out the song of the upcoming spring when he persuaded Frank Ocean and Migos to hop on his "Slide" beat. "Slide" is a lush fairground carousel of a track, which sounds like how I imagine riding in an open-top car feels – and now he has shared some of the process by which he made the track:
We start with the recognisable piano riff that kicks things off, and end with Frank's ethereal, self-harmonising vocals (raise your hand if you've ever felt personally victimised by the feelings Frank Ocean can rouse, by the way). The video, uploaded via Twitter, also shows Calvin creating the layers of the song on guitar, piano, synth and bass, before smushing them all up together like a delicious sun-soaked cake.For those of us who haven't grown up writing or arranging music, moments like these are inherently intriguing – that video of Kanye building a beat in the studio doesn't have 4 million views for nothing. And a couple of years ago, when Matt Daniels' website let you step into the seat of master sampler, cutting and pasting components of tracks from Kanye and J Dilla, its popularity showed that even us amateurs like to get in on the action. This video is just another super-interesting look into the brain of a producer, and annoyingly has given me a new-found respect for Calvin Harris.Follow Lauren on Twitter.(Image via Calvin Harris on Instagram)