Premiere: Jade MacRae continues to be Australia's soul queen with I Choose Love

The long-time favourite of Australian soul and R&B will share her new album, Handle Me With Care, later this year.

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If you've been a long-time follower of Australian R&B and soul, then you've more than likely already come across New South Wales' Jade MacRae. Across the last 15 years (!), the musician has blossomed into one of the country's most awarded and long-loved faces - her career stretches across ARIA-charting records and ARIA Award nominations over the span of three decades - and while many artists find themselves floundering with irrelevancy this far into their career (or, in the case of most rock bands, find themselves appealing to a purely 'boomer' audience), Jade MacRae isn't going anywhere away from the limelight anytime soon.

Her latest moves have been teasing a new record scheduled for later this year - mid-2020, apparently - through a double pairing of singles late last year, with Up Above Your Head and My Fathers House taking her distinct, soulful sound and twisting it with new energies to keep it modern and forward-thinking, despite its heavy nostalgia for the 60s and 70s. Now, she's doing it once again, with her latest track I Choose Love - premiering on Pilerats today ahead of its official release tomorrow - welcoming another sign of MacRae's continued dominance as we reach an exciting new chapter in the Sydney musician's career.

Like the two singles before it, I Choose Love is a quick-firing combination of soul and R&B that packs the energy of the genre's old heyday - the dancing 60s and 70s - but brought forward to the modern era; a jazz-like infusion of brass and vocals swirling amongst dancing melodies that never quite lose their emphasis for passion and fiery soul that has become the backbone for her music no matter how many times its textures and energies have grown.

Go beyond these melodies, however, and you find another romance-lit track that presents a bit of a different point of view heading into Valentine's Day: self-love. It's a "declaration of self-love, and a spirited rejection of toxic relationships, abuse and old habits" she says, with I Choose Love's grooves and funk the perfect place to finds this sense of self-empowerment and self-worth. "Love begins with recognising the need to nourish and respect yourself, and through that, can invite a greater, more wholesome love into your life."

Dive into the track below, and stay tuned for the release of her forthcoming record Handle Me With Care sometime later this year.