He’s a mainstay of the Adelaide music scene who has written songs for the likes of the Little River Band, but now musician and Round Records owner Terry Bradford is involved in an exciting new trans-Pacific project, teaming up with North Carolina country musician, Jared Ryan.

The result of the collaboration is Ryan’s album From Over the Water, featuring songs recorded in the United States but all written (or co-written) by Bradford here in SA.

A successful musician in his own right in the US, Jared Ryan was only too pleased to send his vocals downunder to Bradford to create the just-released collaboration.

The material is neither completely Australian nor completely American but realised somewhere in between the two distant places.

The unlikely partnership between the two artists developed through a chance encounter in an online music forum.

“I’m learning to play pedal steel guitar quite late in life and I am in a Facebook forum for pedal steel players,” Bradford says. “Jared is in the forum and earlier this year, I wrote some songs I really wanted to have pedal steel on.

“Jared said he would record the songs I had written, so we communicated online and agreed to do it. It was a total leap of faith. I had never heard him sing, but he surpassed my expectations. He sent the songs back in two days and they sound fantastic.”

What began with a couple of compositions soon snowballed into a complete album’s worth of material and From Over the Water is the result.

Jared Ryan was excited about the idea of collaborating across the globe and says it felt like they were on the same page and in the same neighbourhood.

“Honestly, it was just like working for someone down the street,” he says. “I feel like we could meet up and go for a bite like old friends at this point. It’s crazy; I’ve never even talked to him on the phone or heard his voice in any way other than in his demos. But still I feel like I know as much about him as my close friends because he’s so transparent in his writing.”

“He’s such a free thinker! His ability to take subjects that would be otherwise passed over, and turn them into something to stop and learn from is remarkable. On top of that, the creative style is drastically different from the rut a lot of American artists get stuck in. Every song has been completely different and a whole new adventure!”

The 12 track album features songs like ‘Jenny’ about Terry’s publisher friend from Mushroom records who passed away, ‘Fearless’ which tells of Terry’s friendship with Adelaide bassist Steve Fleming who was the last man standing in a band with Terry when everyone else quit; and ‘Raphaela’ about a reclusive neighbour and Bradford’s autistic son.

From Over the Water is a stunning collaboration of country music which builds a bridge between two unlikely friends and is available now to purchase from Round Records.