Athens, GA, indie pop band Venice Is Sinking began as a one-man band, that one man being singer/guitarist Daniel Lawson, who released the first Venice Is Sinking "album" in the summer of 1997 in his hometown of Peachtree City, GA, in the form of 50 handmade cassette copies. In September 2003, Lawson, having relocated to Athens, founded the group Venice Is Sinking, adding viola/flute/violin/cello player and singer Karolyn Troupe and drummer Lucas Jensen, plus keyboard player Alex Thibadoux and later bassist Stephen Miller. With that, the band began playing shows and recording an album. During this period, Lawson and Troupe became a romantic couple. The band's first recorded efforts to be released were three songs on a split EP with What We Do Is Secret for the independent label One Percent Press in December 2005. By the time the full-length debut CD Sorry About the Flowers appeared on June 20, 2006, Lawson and Troupe had ended their romantic relationship while maintaining the band, and Thibadoux had quit and been replaced by James Sewell. Venice Is Sinking’s second full-length album, AZAR, was released on March 31, 2009. By that time, the group had already recorded what would be its third album, Sand & Lines, at the local Georgia Theatre (though without an audience) in May 2008. The album was released on June 15, 2010. By then, Jeremy Sellers had replaced Miller on bass. ~ William Ruhlmann