Gareth Donkin’s debut, Welcome Home, showcases the 24-year-old’s stunning mix of instrumental virtuosity and emotional intuition, blending highly sophisticated melodic and harmonic craftsmanship with deeply moving lyrical explorations of longing, desire, and determination. The songs draw on soul, funk, pop, yacht rock, hip-hop, jazz, and even bossa nova, hinting at times to everything from Michael Jackson and Bill Evans to George Michael and Jamiroquai, and Donkin’s performances are nothing short of mesmerizing, layering up instrument after instrument in the best one-man-band tradition of Prince or Stevie Wonder. The result is a moving work that’s equal parts brain and brawn, a masterful coming-of-age self-portrait from a young artist discovering himself—and his sound—one song at a time. Donkin was born with perfect pitch, and already fanatically obsessed with jazz piano and drums before he turned twelve. In high school, he began DJing and teaching himself to record and sample, and by the time he headed to the Leeds Conservatoire to pursue a degree in music production, he was already writing and recording his own material at home. His first single, “Catharsis” would go on to rack up more than a million streams on Spotify, and a series of subsequent tracks would find similarly organic success and help land him a deal with the burgeoning drink sum wtr label. 2024