Recorded in a bedroom in Cambridge when Robin Skinner was still a teenager, this self-titled debut collects eight tracks of hushed, home-recorded folk. Acoustic guitar, minimal percussion, and Skinner's soft, close-miked voice. The production is deliberately rough-edged, you can hear the room, the chair creaks, the sense of someone working alone with a laptop and a couple of mics.
The songs sit somewhere between early Bright Eyes and the lo-fi end of YouTube bedroom culture. 'devil town' and 'hazel' became cult favourites in online spaces, their unpolished intimacy part of the appeal. Skinner's lyrics lean towards melancholy observation, adolescent loneliness rendered without much decoration. The arrangements are skeletal: mostly guitar, occasional programmed drums that sound intentionally cheap. 'intermission' is a brief instrumental, barely a minute. 'banana bread' closes the record with layered vocals and a drum machine that sounds like it came from a phone app.
This is for people who value directness over finish, who find something honest in the hiss and the hum. It sounds exactly like what it is: someone figuring out how to make songs in a small room, before anyone was paying attention.
