Take a little travel across the country from the evergreen-clad, rainy Northwest to the Southeastern United States. You may have seen these guys atop our Top 50 Albums of 2009, or caught one of the many features or reviews we’ve passed their way over the past year and a half. Today FensePost phoned up Venice Is Sinking for a rare interview; rare for us. We were pretty excited about it as, after all, we don’t do many of these. But questions were easy to conjure up …

Dark and dreamy, “Falls City” is the first track available from the new Venice Is Sinking album, Sand & Lines. The song is a testament to this band’s versatility and ability to create a diverse set of music. Recorded using only two microphones in Athens’ Georgia Theatre, which burned down a few months after it was recorded, the album is set for a June 2010 release — one year after a fire destroyed the building. All proceeds from the album will go to the theater.

“Okay” by Venice Is Sinking is easily one of my favorite tracks of 2009 and the album on which it can be found, AZAR, will be a tough contender to beat for the best album of the year. In support of their new maxi-single for “Okay”, they’ve now given us a most excellent video to accompany its promotion. The video itself is a joyous montage dubbed “How to Achieve Musical Greatness.” It’s a testament to how great this band truly is; “Okay” as a song is absolutely …

In Invitation Air, The Ginger Envelope‘s follow-up to Edible Orchids, the band displays an impressive progression in songwriting and instrumental capabilities. Cohesive is its nature; this album goes very well alongside their earlier work. But from the opening track, “Turn Into Tempests”, it’s readily apparent that a change has occurred, one that finds The Ginger Envelope giant leaps ahead in their ability to wow the listener.

One can draw several conclusions from the cover of Edible Orchids. First, it gives the distinct impression of The Ginger Envelope being a post-Elephant 6 band. The green tint, personally, takes me back to Everything Is Green, an early release by The Essex Green on Elephant 6 and the newly resurgent Kindercore. The name of the band and album is the second hint—the names roll off the tongue like those off the lovable indie pop label. So, one shouldn’t be too surprised that The Ginger Envelope …

It’s only the first of March and I can already tell that 2009 is going to be an amazing year in music. Let’s do a quick list. Top releases by artist this year so far: Animal Collective, Beirut, Camera Obscura, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Pree, and Venice Is Sinking (MySpace). And I know I’m missing quite a bit here already. The last on the list is slated to give us their sophomore release, AZAR, (reviewed by Fense here) on March 31.

Athens, GA is a hotspot for new talent, and one of the most promising acts in quite some time is the sometimes experimental, sometimes shoegaze greatness that is Venice Is Sinking (MySpace). AZAR is the quintet’s second; it’s an album packed with connotations like sometimes and conceptual and maybe even dreamy.