WINTER SESSIONS Visit The Band's Website winter/sessions started in 2001 as an aesthetic movement to pass the long winter months of Michigan. The first recordings of winter/sessions are raw, a basic analog 4-track recorder with often only a single microphone. Since then, the recording process has changed, as has the setting. Their debut album memphis/sessions, was recorded and produced independently in Memphis, Michigan in the spring of 2007 and was released in September at the Earthwork Harvest Gathering. The album has since been nominated for two Jammie Awards by the Grand Rapids independent radio station WYCE: Best Local Folk Album of the Year and Best New Local Folk Album of the Year. With the line up of a bluegrass band (acoustic guitar, dobro, banjo and mandolin) winter/sessions stay clear of a single genre. Their sound is rooted in traditional bluegrass and folk, however winter/sessions likes to move their music progressively in and out of genres, away from a stylized or prescribed category. Their end product is a sound that is both pure and new, a sound that is midway between tradition and innovation. Composed of three writers and a bilinguist, the band focuses on thought provoking lyrics as well as great music. Music critic Drew Hampton writes: winter/session's cerebral lyrics and eclectic sound have demanded the attention of prominent musicians within the Michigan folk music scene while capturing the imagination of festival goers statewide. Original and honest, winter/sessions are lifting the wool off of music lover's eyes and showing them what music should and can be. In only a year of touring winter/sessions has kept busy spreading their sound across the state. Their original music has been played for audiences at the State Theatre in Kalamazoo, Short’s Brewery, Founder’s Brewing Company, Billy’s Lounge, Magdalena’s Tea House, Crazy Wisdom Tea Room, Farmfest, and the Earthwork Harvest Gathering, among others. The band has played with established Michigan acts such as Creekside, Hawks and Owls, James Dake, Glean Infusion, the Ragbirds, and many of the Earthwork collective. They continue to improve and evolve everyday in their music and in their lives, spreading an unbounded positive energy that could only be winter/sessions. They are currently touring and working on their sophomore album, solstice/sessions.