Del Water Gap Shines on I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left Yet

I miss you already, and I haven’t left yet. S. Holden Jaffe, the artist better known as Del Water Gap, found those nine words scratched in the pages of a dusty William Carlos Williams poetry book while going through his late grandfather’s possessions. And, while Jaffe’s grandfather penned the note to his grandmother in another place and time, the years between the past and present melted away as he considered those words.

See, Del Water Gap is no stranger to the psychological concept of anticipatory grief, or the feeling of loss one gets while waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like generations of creatives before him that came of age amidst the bright lights and boundless ambition of New York City, Jaffe spent his salad days oscillating between working odd jobs to scrape by, chasing his artistic dreams and pleasure-seeking. He succeeded at all of the above—and then, a lot of things seemed to happen at once. Some of them were good: He signed to independent record label Mom + Pop Music and released his stellar, self-titled 2021 debut album, which propelled him to international recognition; he embarked on a global tour in support of that project and played to crowds around the world. But the flip side of those rosy dreams-come-true was a less idealized version of reality. The usual suspects popped up: Jaffe was in a state of constant change, spending night after night in various hotel rooms and still adjusting to his new lifestyle. Though on the outside, he was achieving his wildest dreams, on the inside, he felt dejected and spiritually drained.

So Jaffe did exactly what he knew how to do. Working alongside producer Sammy Witte (whose resume includes SZA’s SOS and Harry Styles’ Harry’s House), he poured everything he had into his next Del Water Gap project. The result was I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left Yet, an intimate record brimming with passion, energy and feeling. Though Jaffe delves into difficult subject matter—vocalizing experiences with love, loss, sobriety and massive existential doubt— he sounds looser, freer and more like himself than ever before. But this authenticity doesn’t come without a struggle. As Jaffe notes on album standout “Coping on Unemployment,” a deceitfully upbeat, emotionally raw track that sounds like it came right out of the height of the Tumblr era: “It’s hard to give yourself over to something / When it could all turn into nothing.”