Sleepyhead

Robin Skinner makes music by himself, in his bedroom, but his songs belong to the world. The son of a professional flautist and Cambridge University’s director of music, the 20-year-old UK singer / songwriter—who’s performed under the name Cavetown since 2013—has musical talent literally embedded in his DNA. But that underlying musical theory is nothing without the emotional underpinnings that take a song from technically proficient to transformatively powerful. Marrying the two is what makes Cavetown so captivating and resonant with fans. They see themselves in Skinner’s music: tales of love and loss, of yearning to make sense of life and all the feelings that go along with it. For three minutes at a time, listeners feel less alone inside his songs, finding comfort in times of chaos and confusion.