Dowsing

Erik Czaja’s deep involvement in New Jersey’s D.I.Y. punk community, where he spent most of his college years organizing basement concerts, made it all but certain he would eventually front his own group. Dowsing came together inside a Chicago pizzeria in 2010, with Gooey Fame handling bass, Delia Hornik on organ, and Marcus Nuccio behind the drums; the quartet swiftly established itself as a regular presence in the city’s underground punk circuit. Early the following year the four-piece tracked its debut EP, issuing the self-released All I Could Find Was You that May and delivering six songs of emo-infused indie rock. Michigan’s Count Your Lucky Stars quickly took notice, signed the band, and reissued the EP several months afterward. In 2012 Dowsing shared a split single with labelmates and road companions Parker, then unveiled its first full-length, It’s Still Pretty Terrible, one month later. The group kept touring through the remainder of 2012 and into 2013 before expanding to a quintet by adding Mikey Crotty on additional guitars and cutting its second album, I Don’t Care Anymore. Issued that August on Count Your Lucky Stars, the record was accompanied by Czaja’s announcement that Hornik and Nuccio had been asked to depart. While Czaja devoted energy to his other projects, Pet Symmetry and Kittyhawk, Dowsing stayed off the road until mid-2014, when it embarked on a U.S. tour alongside the Sidekicks. A refreshed lineup featuring Czaja and Crotty alongside new members Michael Politowicz on bass and William Lange on drums surfaced a demo track the next year, signaling the close of an unsettled period. In 2016 the quartet signed with Mike Park’s Asian Man Records and delivered its more aggressive third album, Okay, in April. Subsequent dates supporting the release took the band across Europe and the United States in the company of fellow Chicagoans Ratboys, an alliance that also produced a split single issued by Massachusetts-based Topshelf Recordings.