Dowsers is Courtney Werner & Evan Morgan (Magic Tuber Stringband, Weirs), Austin Cash (solo artist, Austin Cash & Nathan Smearage), Oliver Child-Lanning (Weirs, Sluice, Fust), James Gibian (Beak Trio), and Alli Rogers (Alli Blois).

Dowsers comes out of the fertile central NC music scene. Chicago-based, Arkansas-born guitarist Austin Cash is the only out-of-towner; typically an open-tuned fingerstyle guitarist, Cash brings a delicate and painterly approach to the lead guitar lines that run across the record. The concept behind the group, a kind of slacker rock approach to the folk rock tradition of bands like Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention, acts as a foil to the “modern stringband” sound of Morgan and Werner’s work in Magic Tuber Stringband. Still, tracks like “Three Forks of Cheat” and others on the record may retain some of the dynamic interplay between fiddle and guitar emblematic of the Magic Tuber sound, but bolstered by bass, drums, and the introduction of electricity. While the folk rock inspiration is obvious, the idiosyncratic styles of the players involved makes for a unique kind of rock band sound, as much Velvet Underground as Harvey Milk, as much Tony Conrad as Pavement.