Cavetown

Called “Haunted Lullaby,” the song was less than a minute long and featured Skinner’s light, comforting tenor vocals over a delicately-plucked ukulele and reversed samples.

Skinner was just 14 when he released his debut album, Everything Is Made of Clouds, on Bandcamp. The album came out roughly a month before “Haunted Lullaby” and began to draw listeners from the start. It’s an album that delivers the same warm, intimate feeling as many other forms of indie pop, though with a distinctive feeling of detached honesty and bedroom pop vibes.

All this inspiration had to come from somewhere. It should come as no surprise then that Skinner’s father, David, was a choir director and musicologist who taught his son guitar at age eight. Likewise, Skinner’s mother was a music teacher and a professional Baroque flutist. Raised in Cambridge, Skinner had no shortage of influences and musical trendsetters to follow.

After Clouds came more EPs and albums: 2014’s Gd Vibes, 2015’s Nervous Friends // Pt. 1 and Everything Is Made of Stars. In 2015, Skinner also released his first single “This Is Home” in advance of his self-titled album Cavetown in November 2015. This album combined acoustic and electronic elements in eight irresistible tracks, including “Meteor Shower” and “Devil Town.”

During this time Skinner had also begun another activity he is now famous for: covers. His YouTube channel became a virtual treasure trove of covers of artists like Joji, Twenty One Pilots, Pinegrove, and others, often with creative changes and introspective takes on the songs’ lyrical meanings.

2016 saw the release of Skinner’s second full-length album, 16/04/16. This title was the date of death of Skinner’s childhood friend, Jack Graham, who lost a battle with leukemia. The album is a touching tribute, with “warm, melodic bedroom pop” mixed with “lo-fi indie rock” – and 60% of all proceeds went to Cancer Research UK.

In April 2017, Skinner was still at Sixth Form College and had reached the final stage of the Cambridge Band Competition. He won both the Kimberley Rew Award for Songwriting and the Best Acoustic Act, which gave him a chance to play at Strawberry Fair that summer. One year later, he released LEMON BOY, his third full-length album, which has gone on to collect 54 million Spotify streams.

2019’s Animal Kingdom was a compilation of five single splits with artists like Simi, Sidney Gish, Chloe Moriondo, and spookyghostboy. The single “Prom Dress” by Mxmtoon has gathered over 152 million Spotify streams and has made it to 100,000+ videos on TikTok.

That same year, Cavetown signed to Sire Records and began a worldwide tour headlining sold-out shows. Playing at 31 venues in the US and 15 venues in the UK, he was joined by musical friends like Chloe Moriondo and Hunny.

Though COVID-19 forced cancellation of Cavetown’s 2020 tour, the year was still a busy one. He released his major label debut Sleepyhead, collaborated on the single “Smoke Signals” by Tessa Violet, and launched a unisex clothing line called Cave Collective.