When Jessie Ware first appeared on our collective musical radar earlier this decade, she did so as a fully-formed proposition: a down-to-earth London girl with a subtle, steely voice and a gift for bridging the gap between R&B, soul, and the sounds of British dance music. Her music is adult contemporary in the purest and most complimentary sense of the phrase: It’s meant for grownups who can appreciate the balance she strikes between the past and the present.

Ware’s new single, “Midnight,” inhabits the same complex space she first defined on her albums Devotion and Tough Love. The relationship at its heart isn’t a weekend fling or a casual romance: It’s real, risky love, the kind of love that can curdle into emotional devastation if you’re not careful. She floats over an undulating synth melody before howling alongside a stomping piano riff: “Don’t let me fall through/Now that I need you.” She’s never sounded more desperate, reaching into the upper limits of her range with an explosiveness largely absent from her earlier work. Ware’s performance captures all of the magic and terror that comes with totally yielding your heart to someone else. This is Ware’s gift: She takes those rare moments where the stakes are irreversibly raised, and imbues them with the drama and elegance they deserve.