A Slow Rip are a three-piece from the northern beaches of Wollongong who use group improvisations to create ambient dronescape pieces that are warm, glowing and transformative; some floating and shimmering and reflective and some darker, shadowy and fleeting.

A Slow Rip came into being in September 2003. Ian Miles and Phil Turnbull, having met through mutual friends, had for a few years been swapping music; especially experimental music, early analogue electronics, Krautrock, drones and odd-ball pop. When Phil re-bought an ARP Odyssey (the instrument he had played in seminal Sydney Post-Punk bands Voigt/465 and Wild West) Ian suggested they get together and do some synthesiser drones, with the Odyssey and his Moog Opus 3 (kept since the mid 80s when he played with underground Perth bands).

At the last minute Ian’s friend and long time jamming buddy, Rob Laurie, (veteran of numerous Wollongong bands and performance art groups – including the punk/jazz band Man Bites Dog) included himself, borrowing a friend's guitar and effects pedals when the synth he had planned to use refused to work. Phil and Ian produced a nest of swirling Analogue synth washes, full of buzzing and squalling, setting a bed for Rob’s percussive, ‘guitar on the table’, explorations and grooves. This happy accident approach ‘clicked’ immediately and has formed the basis of how the band has worked even since.
Christened A Slow Rip by Phil, over the next few years the group had another 6 sessions, recording each to tape and then transferring the music on to the computer for editing and enhancement. Originally the group edited and listened together, making only minor changes, but as time moved on Rob’s command of mixing technologies led him into collage and creative remixes, so that whilst many pieces retained their essential qualities of performance, others were reworked so extensively to appear, in their final form, like a new entity.

Whilst Rob gradually extended his palette during improvisations to include nearly anything he could hit or blow, and Phil moved to explore the sonorities of the Alessis Ion (a digital synth which retains much of the warmth and flexibility of old Analogue Synths), the core of A Slow Rip remained solid - with Phil and Ian exploring drones and washes and consonant improvisation, and allowing Rob to explore lush, spiky, odd and expressive improvisations with voice, guitar, percussion and wind.
Faust, Can, Cluster, Terry Riley, krautrock and german synth music are obvious influences underlying the basis of their sound, but like most good music A Slow Rip is more than just an eclectic pastiche of influences. The final outcome is more like current ambient electronic and instrumental groups such as Growing, Landing, Belong, Tim Hecker, Aidan Baker, Biosphere, and even Eno.

Both in the playing and post production A Slow Rip strives for consonance and counterpoint, joyfully drawing from all of their musical loves (which between the three members probably includes examples from nearly all genres), but their central preoccupations are sonic. The quality and texture of sound produced in an atmosphere of low-tech experimentation are taken to a high-tech blending, collage and enhancement. The effect is of a warm whole. Drones resonate and prickle the hairs on your neck, organs hum bell-like, and electronic noise swirls both sweet and mysterious. The ‘wild card’ is Rob. He may let forth with gothic sweeps of glissando guitar, strange vocal or wind noises, or crunching scraping feedback.

Informed by the past, A Slow Rip now charts its own course. The double-album ‘For the Time Being’ (to be released in August 2008) chronicles these 3 years of growth, fun and experimentation