They Are Gutting a Body of Water began as the solo project of singer Doug Dulgarian, and is now filled out with bassist Emily Lofing, guitarist PJ Carroll, and drummer Ben Opatut. The son of a dirt track racecar driver, Dulgarian grew up in the Hudson Valley before relocating to Albany for court-mandated rehab in 2010. Soon after getting clean in 2013, Dulgarian attended his first house show. Inspired by this community of musicians self-releasing and organizing shows in makeshift spaces, he dove into DIY.
LOTTO, the fourth studio album from the band (to be released in October 2025), surfaced from Dulgarian’s self-imposed challenge to put his guitar first. “I just wanted to make a fucking record where the riffs really get stuck in your head,” he explains. The record captures the sound that made the band a prominent force in the American underground: menacing riffs, soaring leads, wailing distortion. In a world of automated robo-calls and pervasive AI content optimised to keep us scrolling, LOTTO is an attempt to capture the sound of four human musicians in a room.