Since finding a following with his hit single “Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat” in 2020—Florence Pugh was an early fan—S. Holden Jaffe, known professionally as Del Water Gap, has blasted out of lockdown and into a string of back-to-back tours over the last few years. Yet Jaffe’s career began far earlier: He’s also produced and co-written music with Maggie Rogers, a friend of his from NYU, who was part of the Del Water Gap project in its earliest iteration.
Now, he’s just days away from releasing his sophomore album, I Miss You Already + I Haven t Left Yet, out September 29. “Great art is channeling openness,” Jaffe tells Vogue. “The creation of this album was about letting go of the ambition that comes with art and surrendering to the unknown.”
IMYA+IHLY is a 12-track indie-alt album exploring love, connection, commitment, independence, and what it means to share yourself with another person while still learning who you are. With features from Clairo and Arlo Parks, it’s the type of record that can both evoke the whimsy of sticking your head out of a moving car, and, just a few songs later, deliver the perfect track for crying over a recent heartbreak. Jaffe asserts that “Want It All,” a song about about art-making and ambivalence, is perhaps the most vulnerable one he’s ever written; and he describes the album at large as presenting a perfect picture of his mind and heart while he was writing it (mostly in green rooms, between gigs).
The year-and-a-half-long recording process marked a new creative phase for Holden. After about 40 studio sessions with different people to find the right producers for the album, Jaffe finally aligned with four, leaning on Sammy Witte in particular. (You may know Witte from his work on Harry Styles’s Harry’s House.) The Grammy Award-winning Witte, whom Jaffe characterizes as having a “mystical calm,” helped Jaffe—himself a meticulous producer—to get out of his own way.
“People’s artistic self-flagellation can take different forms; for me, it’s obsession. I would ask myself: Is this vocal two decibels too loud? I’m going to listen to it on different headphones to decide,” explains Jaffe. “Sammy would say, ‘We’re not writing, we’re just hanging out, drinking coffee, and playing with my dog.’ I trusted him enough to open up my heart and write.”
The album’s title refers to Jaffe’s artistic lineage: He has a famously close relationship with his 98-year-old grandmother Pat, a retired filmmaker, with whom he co-hosts a Zoom film club with friends every Sunday. In Pat’s Upper East Side apartment, Jaffe recently came across a love note from his late grandfather David (a clarinet player) while exploring his former study. (The room also included a Rolodex with contacts including Leonard Bernstein and Duke Ellington.)
“One day, I was flipping through some of his books and found a William Carlos Williams collection. I opened the book to his most famous poem, ‘This Is Just to Say,’ which is the only poem of his that I know,” Jaffe recalls. “At the top of the poem, it says, ‘Dear Pat,’ and underneath it says, ‘Love, David. I miss you already, and I haven’t left yet,’ written by my grandfather.” Feeling like he’d stumbled into an intimate moment from the past, Jaffe asked his grandmother’s permission to use that line. She approved, but teased that it seemed like a terrible album name.
More than being something of a romanic, Jaffe is also a true style guy, fascinated by the art of self-presentation. “Del Water Gap has always been about world-building as much as it is about writing songs and putting out music,” he says. “I’ve always been interested in aesthetics and art.” While he notes that for most of his life, he dressed like a skater, he’s now more likely to dress up a bit: take the black floral Saint Laurent suit he wore at last year’s Governor’s Ball. His love of fashion and film is also manifest in Del Water Gap’s cinematic music videos, in which Jaffe often styles himself in vintage Raf Simmons, Issey Miyake, and other fashion favorites.
Now, as he embarks on a North American tour, Jaffe hopes to continue building out the world of Del Water Gap—while also finding time to enjoy each city his band travels to for gigs. (New Yorkers can catch Del Water Gap at Brooklyn Steel on October 21, his biggest headlining show in the city to date.) More than anything, it is gratitude mixed with a bit of nostalgia that helps ground Jaffe before each performance: During his band’s pre-show meditation each night, Jaffe likes everyone to remember how they felt at the first concert they ever attended. (His own first was Ozzy Osbourne and Rob Zombie at age 12.) “We think about someone in the audience whose first concert is tonight, and we play the show for that person,” Jaffe says. “That is the responsibility we’re tasked with every show: As a performer, you are potentially imprinting on someone that will remember this experience for the rest of their lives.”
Photographer: James Bee
Beauty: Alex Levy
Styling: Holden Jaffe, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello
Styling Asst: Hannah Krall
Gaffer: Tim Buol
Photo Assistant: Theo Choi
Digi: Jacky Jiang
BTS: Wenxin Yang
Studio: VNS studios
