Tonight I hit the kitchen to compile the second FensePost podcast, or FenseCast, while cooking up one of my signature dishes: spicy steak enchiladas with homemade sauce. For desert, a delicious slice of gluten free cake courtesy Andi (the girlfriend), whose cake photo you can see in this post. Unlike the first podcast, this one had a range of bands that stemmed into several genres rather than focusing on garage rock and pop. Within I reminisce on one of my favorite bands of all time, occasionally hover …

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.

2009 is a tough year to judge. I’ve checked out more albums this year than any year in the past. Well over 1,000. And there have been quite a few great ones as well. When this list began, it had 110 albums. I abandoned my top 33 and 1/3 for 45, and then said “screw it” and upped the number to an even 50. These are the top notch albums of the year, all worthy of praise.

Not surprisingly, this list is filled with EPs by quite a few bands you know and quite a few you probably don’t. Of the ones you don’t know, many are likely from Washington; a quick count leaves me with five bands, or 1/4 of this list. Many of these bands I consider among the most promising artists to surface in 2009. All are worth checking out, and you’ll want to keep an eye on them as we head into 2010.

“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 …

“Okay” by Athens, GA’s Venice Is Sinking, was released earlier this year on their album AZAR; the band is finally giving it due diligence in their extended single Okay, out this fall. Naturally, the EP begins with “Okay” before diverting into a few new tracks, “Compass” and “Give Up”. They then round out Okay with alternate versions of the two key hits off AZAR, “Okay” and “Ryan’s Song”, both recorded as Henslee Sessions.

We’re now half way through 2009, so I figured it was about time to collect a few favorites from the year thus far. I’ve put together 10 must-hear albums from the first half of 2009. To alleviate any bias, and because I’m totally obsessed with this style of categorization, I’m putting them alphabetically.

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.