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Nov 12, 2024 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Kevin Hainline

Later this week, Tucson-based folk pop singer/songwriter Lara Ruggles is sharing her new album, Anchor Me, out November 15th. Ruggles released her full-length debut album, Cynics & Saints, in 2015 before diving into hooky electro pop in the subsequent years with her project Sharkk Heartt. Anchor Me finds her returning to intimate and homespun folk balladry, exploring the lessons learned from love treasured and lost.

She’s already shared a series of singles from the record, “Bend The Truth,” “Lighthouse,” and “Love Me Instead,” and ahead of the album release she is sharing another track, “Anchor Me, Moon,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“Anchor Me, Moon” is an ambling folk ballad that puts a unerring spotlight on Ruggles’ lilting vocal melodies and storybook songwriting. Ruggles is an effortlessly charming presence, waltzing around a loping piano line, winsome acoustic chords, and bassy marching drums as the track’s instrumentation gradually fills out the spacious mix. The track feels like a moonlit walk spent staring at the clear night sky, with the swaying rhythm and breezy instrumentation mirroring Ruggles’ lyrics: “Anchor me, moon / I am ready for you / Tie me to you / And lead me through these blues / How do you know / You stay whole even though / There’s just half of you showing / On some lonely old nights.”

Ruggles says of the track, “When I wrote this one I had just ended an eight-year relationship and I was living in Colorado in a house with four roommates and hippie commune vibes (in a good way, most of us are still close). The house was just outside town so we were on a dirt road and we had these beautiful clear night sky views. I had just taken a songwriting workshop where the songwriter who led it swore by writing entire songs ‘in the air,’ without picking up an instrument until you were super clear on the entire melody and structure, so that you wouldn’t just pick the easiest chord and then try to adapt the melody to fit. And I also was going to a lot of shows in Denver, and feeling really inspired by the trend I was noticing in the music scene of using time signatures outside of the typical 4/4 and 6/8.

So with all that bouncing around in my head, I went on a walk alone one night and looked up at the moon and just started singing. I made a bunch of voice memos along the way, and by the time I got home I had most of this song. It’s just a snapshot of what I was feeling that night, ten years ago now, walking along a dirt road in the crisp night air with the full moon hanging there in front of me.”

Check out the song below. Anchor Me is out everywhere on November 15th.