Anslee McCrae teaches piano to pay for her records. She does not present this as sacrifice — it's a system, and it works. The music she makes with those self-funded sessions is deeply arranged, emotionally precise, and built to last.
Her album Dream Again grew out of real loss: the early death of a childhood best friend, years of personal health struggles. These aren't subjects she circles around. They're the center of the work, particularly in "Warrior" — a response to victimization that insists on empowerment rather than grief, forgiveness rather than resentment. "Every song that I write, I write to try to help people," she told us, and "Warrior" is the clearest statement of that purpose.
Working with producer Tony Corelli, Anslee builds orchestral layers over a piano foundation that connects her directly to Tori Amos and Ani DiFranco. But there's also the heavier edge of Evanescence and Radiohead in her DNA, and the political anger of Rage Against the Machine — all filtered through a songwriter who has learned, the hard way, what it actually costs to survive.