Lara Ruggles released "Out of an Eggshell" in 2011 and "Cynics & Saints" in 2015. In 2016 she returned home to Tucson, Arizona where she started her project Sharkk Heartt, releasing an album and three singles which allowed her to explore songwriting through infectious electro-pop anthems that marked a distinct departure from her previous sound. Ruggles’ new record Anchor Me, her first release under her own name in 9 years, is a return to form, a rediscovery of vulnerability both in lyricism and production. The acoustic arrangements are left open, alternating between piano ballads and understated folk-rock that allow Ruggles’s powerful voice to soar through the mix. Ruggles and Steve Varney (Kid Reverie) tracked most of the record in three days on Gregory Alan Isakov’s farm in Boulder, Colorado, with Varney producing. Ruggles then brought in friend and Emmy-winning composer Tyler Sabbag to add percussion, and finished the project with Steven Lee Tracy at Saint Cecilia Studios in Tucson. Whether she is delivering a gut-punch of a realization or a contemplative rumination, the songs on Anchor Me feel close, tangible, and real. In ‘Love Me Instead,’ she looks boldly at the discrepancy between the love we ask for and the love we receive. In ‘Luckier,’ she tries to make sense of falling in love while the world is in turmoil. In ‘Hard Road’ she cracks open her relationship with the music industry itself in a heartbreaking meditation on the artist’s path in the modern world.