Scrawled in the margins of a William Carlos Williams poetry book dusted off in his late grandfather’s study, S. Holden Jaffe found a note that had once been left for his grandmother: “I miss you already, and I haven’t left yet.” A simple gesture preserved for decades illuminated a reality that Jaffe now faced at present: a perpetual state of similar departures.

The years during which Jaffe began writing, recording and performing as Del Water Gap were ones fueled by the kind of hedonism that you can get away with when you’re young and hungry in New York City. But at some point between exiting the pandemic and releasing his long-awaited debut album via Mom + Pop in 2021, that lifestyle had swiftly (and necessarily) vanished. Now midway through a global tour behind that record, he had found stability in the constant transience through his relationship and his sobriety. Still, the rigor of spending every night in a different hotel room was taking its expected toll, and by the time he was expected to put pen to paper for the next Del Water Gap project, Jaffe felt spiritually depleted.