Overview: Del Water Hole’s ‘I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left But’ redefines longing

Content material warning: This text comprises mentions of suicide and habit.

Del Water Hole’s sophomore album “I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left But” makes vulnerability appear comforting. Two years after releasing their debut, Del Water Hole’s newest file is an introspective take a look at pining and private wrestle.

Del Water Hole is the title of Samuel Holden Jaffe’s now-solo mission. The Brooklyn-based NYU alum introduced his band to school when he started learning at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. Fellow classmate and now critically acclaimed pop star Maggie Rogers was an early member of the band. Del Water Hole has opened for Rogers on tour a number of instances, and has been credited as a co-writer and producer on two songs from her current album, “Give up.”

Since 2015, Jaffe has launched two studio albums, one dwell album and a lot of singles and EPs as Del Water Hole — incorporating his pals on many tracks, resembling “Quilt of Steam” co-written by Arlo Parks, and “Gone In Seconds” that includes Clairo on clarinet.

“I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left But” will get its title from Jaffe’s grandparents. In a notice to his grandmother addressed “Dearest Pat,” his grandfather included the poem “This Is Simply To Say,” by William Carlos Williams. He signed the notice, “Love David. I miss you already + I haven’t left but.” 

The album title’s sentiment of longing is undoubtedly the clearest theme all through the file. There’s a craving for peace, previous relationships, previous identities and an insufferable ache to change into somebody higher.

The album grapples with heavy themes resembling sobriety and a wrestle with dangerous habits. This mission was born out of a time of non-public wrestle for Jaffe. He opened up about habit in a current Instagram publish in regards to the new album, writing, “I kicked an habit & obtained a second likelihood at a life in music after deciding I couldn’t do that anymore … I’m comfortable this story didn’t finish when it might’ve.”

The back-and-forth pressure between desirous to give up and pushing ahead is current in lots of the songs. In “Coping on Unemployment,” he writes a couple of dialog he has with a lady who says, “ ‘I feel your music obtained worse’ / ‘Because you went totally sober, at the very least now you gained’t kill your self’ / (That you must get some assist.)”

“Need It All,” is one in all his most susceptible songs but. Within the lyrics, Jaffe admits, “Thinkin’ ‘bout killin’ myself on a regular basis / Ain’t too good for enterprise / Ain’t good for this headache / Ain’t good for my thoughts.” The catchy tracks are rooted in harrowing lyrics — writing that’s each private and intensely trustworthy. He can cite a particular dialog he had in a approach that makes the observe really feel relatable, like a dialog any of us might have had in our personal lives.

One of many strongest elements of Del Water Hole’s music is its dedication to constructing scenes and creating an aesthetic world with lyrics. Songs like “Gemini” and “Seashore Home” showcase this greatest, as they set the scenes of events and lean on particular conversations. “Gemini” does this most explicitly, opening with the road, “So right here’s the setting, we met fucked up at a marriage.” “Seashore Home” focuses extra on pulling out a sense based mostly on snapshots of singular pictures, “The lodge room the place I camped out / Blurry tattoos, the freeway sounds / Run with no sneakers, I collapse now.”

In a current Vogue interview, Jaffe shared that Del Water Hole “has at all times been about world-building as a lot as it’s about writing songs and placing out music,” explaining that he’s at all times been “considering aesthetics and artwork.” This consideration to the aesthetics of his persona as Del Water Hole is clear within the songwriting, and it brings Jaffe’s new album right into a extremely curated sonic and visible world. 

The manufacturing, performed predominantly by Jaffe and Sammy Witte, makes it simple to really feel such as you exist in one of many hazy New York nights he’s singing about. 

Very like their debut, “I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left But” distinguishes itself from different indie-pop albums with its considerate contortion and manipulation of vocals. It makes use of Jaffe’s easy voice like glue, pulling it aside and piecing it collectively to create a constant and artificial sound. 

“I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left But” isn’t considering sweating it out on a dance ground. That is an album for the ultimate hours of a rooftop get together, or for staring on the ceiling of a lodge room alone and introspecting. It’s an admirable feat of self-discovery, whereas additionally an insightful contemplation on the stains that the conversations and relationships we’ve got with one another go away behind. 

Del Water Hole’s Fall tour will come to New York on Oct. 21 at Brooklyn Metal.

Contact Eliana Brown at [email protected].