Shy and Toppy founded the Ropes as a duo in 2005 after meeting as interns at a record label. According to Shy, "While most people seem to bond over things they both like, I think it was a very long shared list of dislikes that kept our initial conversations going." They briefly began performing with a full band in 2006, but after describing working with other band members as “a living hell,” they chose to officially be a duo in early 2008. The band's first release was a 2006 EP entitled Kill Her Off. It was followed by the Cry to the Beat EP in 2007, with drums performed by Blake Fleming from Mars Volta. On May 6, 2008, the Ropes released a full-length album entitled What They Do For Fun. Music critic Allan Raible chose What They Do For Fun as No. 15 on the ABC News 50 Best Albums of 2008. The Ropes disowned What They Do For Fun and the preceding EPs, calling them "Grotesque productions from grotesque times in the history of The Ropes, however some still seem to extract a bit of enjoyment and purity from these early recordings. Some of these songs may be revisited in the future… and many show up when we play live."
Releases from 2009-2014
In March 2009, the Ropes released the Be My Gun EP, followed by another EP that August, Clubs in Europe Forever. They released the Love is a Chain Store and I Miss You Being Gone EPs in early 2010. The song "I Miss You Being Gone” was playlisted by Irish radio station Phantom 105.2, and "Love is a Chain Store" was playlisted by NME Radio in March 2010. In 2011, the band released the Lack of Technology Made Me a Killer EP along with a video that was premiered at the 2012 SXSW music and film festival. The single "Lack of Technology Made Me a Killer" was chosen as Song of the Day by KEXP of Seattle. In October 2013, they released an EP titled The Man Who Refused to Be Born. Two more EPs were released in 2014: I Want It All, So I Can Have Nothing and Sadness Is the Rich Man's Drug. The Ropes toured throughout the US and UK, opening for acts such as Crocodiles, Innerpartysystem,The Bravery, Chapel Club and Sunday Girl. The band's second and final LP as the Ropes was Post-Entertainment, released in February 2013. In an IndieRay interview, the duo explained the title: "Post-entertainment is an examination of artist vs. entertainer. They are not one and the same. They are mutually exclusive. In a broader sense, it is an examination of the 'function' that music and art play in life. If art were to win the battle vs. entertainment – you would have Post-entertainment. Currently, one side is decidedly outnumbered."
R. Missing
The Ropes renamed themselves R. Missing and released an album in March 2017 on the Talitres Records label titled Unsummering. Music magazine The Big Takeover wrote: "Unsummering manages to be even more isolated lyrically than The Ropes’ famously nihilistic previous work, fully embracing complete detachment. Musically, fraught guitar and synth textures paint an image of an unstable world, held together only by tightly quantized electronic drum beats and Shy’s coolly dispassionate vocal."
