I am Scarlit-Rose Ashcraft, known to family and friends as Rosie, and known as Dreamer Queen artistically. The name Dreamer Queen is meant to signify owning a pipe dream by striving to reach for it in one way or another, in spite of even immense challenges with circumstance (and in my case that includes health.) Dreamer Queen is also a bit intentionally snide - but in playful, good kind of way! In spite of challenges music - and finding ways to make my own music - helps me cope. I hope to create music in a way that can not only be enjoyed musically but can also help others with it’s meaning. I believe that so far, I’ve been able to do that. There are few things I love more, and that are more therapeutic, than creating catchy and melodic original music and being in my artistic ‘element’ as Dreamer Queen!
Not Under the Machine was last released in 2017, then in 2020 remastered and with two new songs, and is being re-released under K Dragon Records in July, 2023. It is an original pop music album which has received glowing reviews. It combines a unique, very catchy, retro-appreciating, subtly edgy - and super fun to listen to - synthpop sound that you can dance to and/or sing along with! There’s also an overall theme of positive inspiration and hope in spite of darkness. I am excited to share that I’ve had a lot of excellent feedback on this music!
Music is something I love with my soul and I would consider writing and composing pop songs a strong special interest of mine even from the beginning of my life. As a child, being a pop artist was the most exciting thing to me. I would - like a true artsy geek - dress up in flamboyant clothing and use a hairbrush in front of my mirror while singing to the rhyming little tunes I’d composed. I’d annoy people in waiting rooms by tapping my feet - after all I was writing a song in my head! As I got older, I began writing both poetry and songs, which I kept in journals. It helped me through really tough times. I am neurodiverrse too - meaning I am on the autistic spectrum (diagnosed in 2012.) I must at least partly credit the way my brain is wired for the way I express my creativity via music - and it’s so much fun when I’m in that element. It’s not just fun, it’s blissful, it’s exciting, it’s whimsical. This is the passion I put into my music, and you will hear it. If you like pop music then you may love it, too.
Dreamer Queen is like a ‘super hero’ symbolizing standing up to social and systemic bullying and ultimately ruling one’s dreams in spite of barriers and celebrating worthy-ness and being deserving of experiencing joy via channeling and expressing one’s creativity - in spite of disabilities, differences, various forms of discrimination, and the threat to be denied via lack of privilege ie. hardship & poverty, disability, chronic illness, not ‘fitting in’ with the ‘acceptable’ norms, emotional/physical abuse exposure, medical gaslighting, post traumatic stress ..and, well, simply being a marginalized person. Non-marginalized people can hopefully appreciate this, too.
The lyrics of each song were influenced by my own survivor story and experiences, which I sometimes write and share a little bit about via blogging/videos (though that’s not easy!) Lyrics can be read via the main music page. Dreamer Queen embodies empowerment in finding and reclaiming ones’ confidence and one’s broken dreams in any way possible. No matter what you’ve been through, you are worthy of experiencing life and your own personal needs and dreams. The story and lyrics in the album symbolize overcoming and transforming anguish into art, and into finding confidence and healing. This symbolizes not only refusing to be thrown ‘under the machine’ (succumbing to bullying, oppression and/or hardship) by refusing to be denied of ones’ right to live with decency and ability to experience joy.
Making Dreamer Queen Not Under the Machine was a labour of love. It was composed, created and built in my own home bedroom studio and glossed with the magical mixing and mastering from the talents of Eric Hogg, of Soma Sound. It was a personally empowering act of rising above and overcoming. The making of this album came at a time when I thought my own dream - a very special one and a fantasy I’d had since I was a little girl - had been lost due to circumstances with my health.
I feel proud that I was able to overcome my own barriers and make this awesome music album an actual, material reality! This is so exciting and I hope to make another album in the near future, which is something I am gradually beginning to plan.
I hope you enjoy this music - dance to it and perhaps also feel empowered and inspired by it, too!
Scarlit-Rose Ashcraft aka Dreamer Queen