Cavetown - Animal Kingdom [UK Import]

Animal Kingdom gathers a run of Cavetown singles into one cosy, ten-track mixtape, and this UK import brings Robin Skinner's 2019 release to vinyl.

Born in Oxford and based in Cambridge, Skinner had already built a devoted following online with gentle, confessional bedroom pop by the time this arrived, a year after his album Lemon Boy. Rather than a conventional album, Animal Kingdom rolled out as five split singles over the turn of 2018 and 2019, mixing original songs with covers, before being collected as a mixtape on the Oat Milk label. The piecemeal approach suits the music, which feels like a scrapbook of late-night ideas.

Juliet opens the set and sets the tone, all soft vocals and hushed, intimate production. Boys Will Be Bugs pairs a breezy melody with wry observations, and Hug All Ur Friends wears its kind heart right there in the title. Among the covers, his take on Frank Ocean's Self Control shows off a gift for making other people's songs feel homemade, as if they were written on the same bedroom floor as his own.

Gentle and earnest, it is a lovely snapshot of an artist on the rise, captured just before his major-label debut, Sleepyhead, the following year.