Fronteeria is a new collaborative project by Charlie Jijari and Sara Joy Meyer, and this first Fronteeria album, How Eden Rose from Untilled Earth, dramatically depicts the interesting story behind the project’s inception.
Charlie and Sara met online in early 2021 in a social media group for autistic people, as they are both diagnosed with ASD (autism spectrum disorder). A beautiful relationship soon bloomed as they discovered how remarkably close their respective passions for music were. They were both skilled improvisational musicians; Sara a classical pianist and Charlie a fingerstyle guitarist. But they also had a similarly wide-ranging taste in music – their shared reverence for the progressive metal band Opeth, in particular, was a very early point of connection.
They soon entered into a long-distance romantic relationship, separated by the Pacific Ocean, as Sara lived in Auckland, New Zealand and Charlie lived in Boston, USA, and they were unable to visit due to COVID restrictions. They talked on FaceTime everyday, and Charlie planned to move to New Zealand when possible. While they waited, Charlie wrote most of this album.
Charlie moved in December of 2022 and they are now engaged and living together in Auckland.
01. The Droughts of War
02. In the Shadow of Appalachia
03. The Largemouth Plague
04. Nebraska
05. A Tulip in a Twister
06. The Ballad of Jedediah Smith
07. Sequoia Lumberjack
08. Pyrite El Dorado, Pt. I: West of the West
09. Pyrite El Dorado, Pt. II: New Worlds Grow Old
10. Pyrite El Dorado, Pt. III: The Panic of 1849
11. Before the Harvest