Cavetown has always felt like a project built on connection rather than spectacle. Over the years, Robin Skinner has quietly grown from uploading songs online to becoming one of the most trusted voices in indie music, all without losing the intimacy that made people gravitate towards his work in the first place. Now, with a new album on the way, Cavetown is entering a phase that feels a little louder, a little sharper, and more emotionally expansive than anything he has released before.
That album, Running With Scissors, arrives today, January 16, and represents a moment of creative stretching for Skinner, both sonically and personally. While his music has always reflected whatever headspace he is in at the time, this record pushes that instinct further, blending familiar warmth with sounds that edge closer to discomfort. As Skinner explains, “My sound always comes from what I’m currently listening to and stuff that I hear in other music that I figured out how to recreate myself production-wise. I guess I listen to music and I pick out things that I want to try myself. I want to see how it blends with what I’m already capable of doing. For this album, I really just wanted to really push myself an extra step and push the sound to the edge of harshness.”
That push came partly from stepping outside his usual solo workflow. While producing alone has always felt safe, working with other producers and writers allowed Skinner to experiment with harsher textures and more intense sonic shifts, drawing influence from bands he grew up loving, including Pierce The Veil and Bring Me The Horizon, while still keeping his own melodic instincts front and centre.
Those influences came full circle recently when Cavetown toured with Pierce The Veil, a pairing that initially surprised some fans but quickly proved to be a natural fit. Reflecting on the experience, Skinner says, “It was truly surreal for me to be an equal with this band that has meant so much to me, and to genuinely also get along with the people. It’s such a relief these days to meet someone you look up to and for them to be good people. I’ve had this connection with Vic for a little while online, so it felt really natural to to work together in a touring scenario, and surprisingly I think there’s a large crossover with our fan bases too, partially because in my early YouTube days I used to cover a lot of Pierce The Veil songs.”
At the heart of Running With Scissors is Skinner’s long-standing relationship with songwriting as a form of emotional processing. Rather than approaching lyrics with a clear message in mind, he often lets instinct lead the way, trusting that meaning will reveal itself over time. “Music is the most comfortable way for me to talk about some things. I think that’s always been the function of it for me, I get into a flow state of writing or creating whatever feels like it should come next. I think that’s allowed me to let some feelings out and some thoughts out that I’ve buried down, and sometimes they come out and I’m like, ‘I don’t know what this means, it just feels right to write these words down, I have no idea what I’m trying to say.’ And then later on, as the song kind of comes together, the song explains itself to me almost.”
That approach led to some deeply personal moments across the album, including a track that took on a new emotional weight once Skinner had time to sit with it. “I wrote a song about my little sibling that was born like six months ago. And I was an only child up until six months ago, which is kind of crazy. I wrote it before she was even born, and I was writing a lot of stuff addressing her in the song and wanting to be a good role model for her and wanting to help her through things that maybe I didn’t have support for when I was growing up. So later when I was listening to it more and had a few therapy sessions about it, I realised I was almost singing to myself stuff that I wanted to hear as a child, and it made me really emotional.”
The album’s latest single, “NPC”, is another example of how past and present blur together throughout the record. The track moves through multiple sonic directions, reflecting the unsettled feeling that inspired it, while drawing from a childhood memory that unexpectedly resurfaced during touring life. “I was directly inspired by an imaginary friend I had as a child, who was named is Mr. Nobody. And his whole thing is that he just isn’t home, he’s away on a business trip all the time. But for some reason, he had a place at the table when I was a kid, and he was real to me, but I never saw him. And through touring and traveling so often, I was thinking about him and I was like, ‘that’s kind of like me now’- like, I’m always away… So it was nice and comforting to kind of connect my current experience to a childhood friend that I made for myself and that has always been in my head.”
Beyond the music itself, Cavetown has continued to foster a strong sense of community, both online and in person, something Skinner feels deeply connected to when touring internationally. That sense of familiarity has been especially noticeable when playing shows in Australia. As he gears up to head Down Under for Laneway Festival this January, along with some headline shows in Melbourne and Sydney, he reflects on what makes international performances so special, saying, “I was really surprised when I first came to Australia at how familiar everyone felt. Globally, honestly, I’ve noticed that my audience are just the same in the nicest way. Everyone is sweet, people dress very similarly, which is really sweet- a lot of similar fashion styles, but there’s just a common sense of community and looking out for each other that has been really obvious at every single show that I’ve done.”
Cavetown’s latest single, Crytpid, has been embraced by fans, standing out as a favourite amongst the tracklist. The video, which dropped earlier today, saw fans flocking to the comments section on the YouTube countdown, hyping themselves up in anticipation.
With Running With Scissors, Cavetown feels like an artist allowing himself to be a little less comfortable, a little more curious, and far more open to following ideas wherever they lead. As Skinner prepares to bring the new material to Australia in early 2026, fans can expect a live experience that reflects that same honesty, vulnerability and quiet intensity.
Cavetown will be playing two headline shows in Sydney and Melbourne in February, as well as playing Laneway Festival. For tickets, click HERE.
CAVETOWN RUNNING WITH SCISSORS TOUR
Wed 11 Feb – Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Thu 12 Feb – Palais Theatre, Melbourne
Also appearing at Laneway Festival
Photo credit: Jaxon Whittington
