Not Drowning, Waving provide guitar. Their name is derived from Stevie Smith's poem "Not Waving but Drowning". Rowan McKinnon soon joined on bass guitar and they recorded "Moving Around" with a drum machine. Other atmospheric instrumentals were recorded at the LaTrobe University's music department's studio. "Moving Around" was released as their debut single in April 1984 on the Rampant Records label. While recording tracks for the debut album, "Another Pond", Bridie and Phillips joined McKinnon (also on guitar) in the ambient pop band, Easter, with Russel Bradley on drums and percussion, and Tim Cole on vocals. Cole became sound engineer and recording producer
Not Drowning, Waving the 'Best Independent Release' at the ARIA Music Awards of 1992 for "Proof", their soundtrack for the 1991 film of the same name. In 1991, Bridie and fellow members of Not Drowning, Waving, formed a side-project, My Friend The Chocolate Cake to play more acoustic-based material. Not Drowning, Waving were a musical group formed in Melbourne, Australia in 1983 – though they first performed as a group in 1984 – by David Bridie and John Phillips. Bridie and Phillips are trained in classical music and met when Bridie, on keyboards, was composing a track, "Moving Around" and asked Phillips to