Jade MacRae

Early years

Born into a musical family—MacRae's mother is respected session vocalist Joy Yates and her pianist father is Dave MacRae—MacRae's musical education began at a young age as she grew up in the Northern Beaches area of Sydney, Australia. The singer commenced learning the piano at the age of three years and the violin at the age of eight. After finishing her Australian Higher School Certificate at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (during her time as a Conservatorium student, MacRae engaged in musical projects with members of The Sleepy Jackson and Pnau), MacRae began singing in a number of Sydney's entertainment venues. As well as singing in a band with Mahalia Barnes, daughter of popular Australian rock singer Jimmy Barnes, she supported Renée Geyer and Jackie Orszaczky.

Through her association with Mahalia Barnes, MacRae attained further work as a backup singer with Jimmy Barnes in the period prior to the commencement of her solo career in 2004. In addition to her work with Jimmy Barnes, MacRae commenced session work as a singer with Australian electronic acts such as Disco Montego, Endorphin and Pnau. German dance producer Ian Pooley recruited her to sing on the track "Heaven", together with Danni'elle Gaha, and the song achieved the top position on the German dance charts.

Jade MacRae

During her time as Barnes' backup singer, MacRae signed a record contract with Michael Hegarty of Workstation Records. Producers, such as Warryn Campbell and White Chocolate, were recruited from Los Angeles, United States (U.S.) to undertake work on the album, while a selection of Australian producers, including Israel, Jarrad Rogers and the Elite Fleet, produced the first single "You Make Me Weak". MacRae wrote or co-wrote each of the album's songs and signed with Roadshow Music, an offshoot of Sony Music Australia, following the completion of recording. "You Make Me Weak" reached the top 50 of the Australian singles charts in early November 2004, while the successive single "So Hot Right Now" (featuring Israel) debuted in the top 20 in February 2005.

MacRae released her debut self-titled album in September 2005 and, in addition to the first two singles, it contained the third single release "Superstar" (featuring 6 Pound)—a fourth song "Up And Do Your Thing" was also released as a promotional/radio single. Also in 2005, MacRae performed the Australian national anthem "Advance Australia Fair" at the World Cup qualifying match, between Australia and Uruguay, at Sydney's Stadium Australia venue.

MacRae's debut album later garnered two ARIA Award nominations in 2006—"Best Urban Album" and "Best Female Artist". In 2006, MacRae performed the Australian national anthem at the 2006 NRL (National Rugby League) Grand Final.

In 2007, MacRae performed an hour-long set prior to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC)'s third and fourth Asian Cup quarter final matches in Sydney, Australia. The 2007 Asian Cup was the first time that Australia participated in the competition.

Get Me Home

After several delays, MacRae's second album Get Me Home was released in October 2008, together with the singles "I Wanna Be In Love" and "In the Basement". However, the album failed to enter any music charts and the lack of popular attention impacted upon the singer's confidence. The singer had written all of the songs on the album and in 2012 MacRae revealed that she was "a bit shell-shocked after that didn’t work out. It was a hard thing to recover from."

In November 2009, Phrase revealed on his Twitter profile that MacRae was rehearsing with musicians for new recorded material.

Dune

Following the release of the MacRae's second album, the singer assumed a new musical pseudonym and presented herself as "Dune". In a September 2012 interview, MacRae explained, “The music I’m making now is definitely more alternative than what I’ve done before, so I thought it needed its own name, its own identity and personality”. MacRae's debut release under the Dune name, the song "Shoestring", was released globally in July 2012, together with a music video (MacRae co-directed the music video).

An EP entitled Oh Innocence was then released on 14 March 2013 and MacRae had revealed earlier in the year that all of the Dune recordings were self-funded, self-produced and self-released. MacRae's live band for the Dune project consists of a bassist and drummer, Luke Hodgson and Leigh Fisher (both from the band Gypsy and the Cat), and the group was invited to play at the 2013 Great Escape Festival that is held annually in Brighton, UK. In an early 2013 interview with the Time Out media group, MacRae provided an insight into the response that she had received from fans of her previous work under the "Jade MacRae" title:

I think some people are quite disappointed in the new direction – some people on the urban scene can be quite staunch ... It’s amazing how short people’s memories are though. A lot of the people that I’ve dealt with in media have no recollection of me ... There’s no culture these days in the mainstream really – the idea of discovering an artist, getting all their albums and getting obsessed with them is dying out. It still exists to some extent in indie bands and left-of-centre music.

Collaborations

Several of MacRae's compositions have been recorded by other artists, such as "Gonna Take Some Time" (Jimmy and Mahalia Barnes), "Ride My Tempo" (by Ida Corr) and "Glamorous" (by Belgian pop star Natalia).

In mid-2007, MacRae toured Australia as part of the Broad show and performed alongside Deborah Conway, New Buffalo, Anne McCue and Abbe May. MacRae then collaborated on the song "Life" in late 2009 with the duo "Space Invadas" (Katalyst and Steve Spacek).

In 2012, MacRae contributed vocals to the soundtrack of the Australian film The Sapphires (alongside Jessica Mauboy and Lou Bennett, Juanita Tippens and Darren Percival), in addition to the fourth album of Australian artist Kevin Mitchell (recording under his "Bob Evans" pseudonym), Familiar Stranger.

Other media

MacRae signed on to participate in the Australian celebrity television singing show, It Takes Two in 2006 and was partnered with Australian cricket player Michael Bevan—the pair was eliminated on 2 July 2006. MacRae returned to It Takes Two in May 2007 and was partnered with Home and Away's Bobby Morley on that occasion (Morley appeared in the music video for MacRae's song "In the Basement" later that year). Morley and MacRae were eliminated on the episode that aired on 12 June 2007. In 2008, MacRae returned to the television show for a third time and was partnered with actor Paul O'Brien—the pair were eliminated in the eighth week of the season.

MacRae briefly acted in the co-host role for Sydney's Edge 96.1 radio station, and has also appeared several times on the Australian musical comedy/quiz shows Spicks And Specks and RocKwiz.

Personal life

MacRae married hip hop artist Phrase in August 2011, having dated since 2008 who are based in Melbourne, Australia.

Albums