With Anchors, Chicago-based bass clarinetist-composer Jason Stein arises from a six-year hiatus as bandleader with his most personal, nuanced, and expansive album to date. It was created together with bassist Joshua Abrams (Natural Information Society, of which Stein has been a member since 2017), drummer Gerald Cleaver (whose bona fides run deep & wide), and guest artist/co-producer Boon. Anchors is a suite of great beauty and potency, moving from meditative calms to lyrical buoyancy to gripping intensity and again to a transformative peace found in unity.

Anchors are, so often, symbolic of strength and stability. They reflect our capacity to steady ourselves in turbulent waters, allowing us to traverse the deepest seas. With anchors aboard, we can quell our fears, weather the storm, and chart forth. In all their looming weight, anchors allow us to be free. With Anchors, Jason Stein emerges with a luminous tribute to anchors of his own. Amidst the discomfort of transformation, he reaches into a reservoir of resilience and invites us to do the same.