Beasts & Beauty Collide in Del Water Gap’s Album ‘Chasing The Chimera’

Del Water Gap: ‘Chasing The Chimera’ Album Artwork. Image credit: delwatergap.net

‘The album creeps along a tightrope of hope across a chasm of fear.’

Del Water Gap’s third studio album, ‘Chasing The Chimera’, is a foray into the darkness. It’s an uncomfortable venture, whether in the labyrinth of the mind, a home that’s grown cold, or the fabrics of our closest relationships that threaten to splinter us apart if we destabilise them. 

But that’s exactly what Samuel Holden Jaffe promises to do from opening track, ‘Marigolds’; depicting ‘a mouse stuck in a maze’. It’s not easy to dump your feelings in a lyric book and into art beyond that diaristic style of songwriting we’re all tiring of. And yet, the New Yorker has spun his darkest thoughts into tangibly moving music. Bestial mythology, folklore and ancient history push and pull against tender portrayals of real-life intimacy, loss and doubt, making this album a deeply layered delight.

We’re exploring these concepts in Del Water Gap’s new music, and unpacking what ‘Chasing The Chimera’ is all about.

“‘Chasing The Chimera’ is a foray into the darkness... whether in the labyrinth of the mind, a home that’s grown cold, or the fabrics of our closest relationships that threaten to splinter us apart if we destabilise them. ”

Del Water Gap’s New Album: What’s A Chimera?

‘I keep thinking I need to be fixed before I deserve peace’.

Del Water Gap took to Instagram last week to describe this album as an expression of ‘longing for honesty but fearing the cost’. But first, what is a chimera?

In Greek mythology, a chimera is a fire-breathing creature with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail. In essence, it’s an imaginary, terrorising monster. And as S. Holden Jaffe puts it so poetically, ‘trapped inside a skull-sized kingdom’ – the largest monster we face is often our own brain.

It’s also a term for an unrealistic concept, an unlikely hope, a foolish desire – perhaps even an ugly one. Indeed, Jaffe describes this album as the ‘impossible dream for impossible peace’.

And in science, a chimera is an organism made up of two distinct sets of DNA into one being. Holden Jaffe wrote also of ‘the shimmering hope of codependence’ – expressed in this interpretation as two people who have literally fused into one.

Yes, there’s a lot going on here… but it’s difficult to chase something that by definition is so hard to pin down.

Magic Realism: Ghosts, Monsters & Miracles

‘Muscle through the loneliness / a feeling so familiar / guess I'll make it my home.’

Symbolism, parable and historical reference is scattered across Chasing The Chimera, almost always grounded in a hyper-realistic modern-day context. 

‘You're getting thin, my prodigal son / So I count my stones before they're laid / Like the architects of ancient Pompeii’ Holden sings in ‘How To Live’; tossing between grandiose projections for himself and the daily struggle to eradicate his flaws.

And whether it’s the ‘Small Town Joan of Arc’ or the ‘Ghost In The Uniform’, those he sings about frequently also find themselves compared with universal figures and concepts, made real and imperfect. 

But this album is not sinister. To borrow SHJ’s penchant for explaining himself with myths and folk tales, it’s more like the biblical story of ‘Jonah & The Whale’. ‘Chasing The Chimera’ is about being ‘swallowed’ by the parts of us we avoid; being trapped with yourself, and emerging with a better understanding, perhaps even forgiveness. As best as he’s able to, in imperfect human form, S. Holden Jaffe is embracing his journey into the darkness, exploring all its caverns, corners and crevices.

“Whether it’s the ‘Small Town Joan of Arc’ or the ‘Ghost In The Uniform’, those he sings about also frequently find themselves compared with universal figures and concepts, made real and imperfect. ”

World Building In ‘Chasing The Chimera’

‘As the city burned / I was in your arms and in your grandma's prayers’

Wrongfully denied single privileges, ‘Please Follow’ is the moody sound of someone skirting the backstreets of a dark city, contemplating their future, punctured by the horns of urban nightlife. The immersive atmosphere is not worlds apart from Sting’s ‘An Englishman In New York’, carrying the tension of the song’s storyline brilliantly. SHJ shuffles through his unfolding fears, until the emotion collapses with a swell of strings. 

‘Please Follow’ has the edge of something spooky – it’s the only part in the album where the chimera is directly referenced: ‘I swear you’re not a monster’. But the repetition of familial semantics —‘the apartment’; ‘a mother’; ‘a toddler on the shore’— keeps the song rooted in realism, offering fragmented glances at the ugly shadows in our minds.

In contrast, Del Water Gap constantly clings to innocence and silver linings; from the shards of suspended happiness in ‘Marigolds’ to the slow-moving, painful nostalgia of ‘Eastside Girls’; ‘I’ll steal the moonlight / just to watch you dance.’ Throughout, the album creeps along a tightrope of hope across a chasm of fear.

Del Water Gap: On The Pathway To Peace

‘Please don’t tell the boys / I hope I have a daughter’

Closing track ‘Eagle In My Nest’ opens and builds like the first song as the lights go up, the credits roll, and everyone sits collecting their thoughts. If SHJ’s album is the movie, this song is the catharsis.

A symphony of guitars, horns and violins, it’s a circular and beautiful ode to motherhood, moving from SHJ’s reflections as an unborn ‘chest’ towards the idea of becoming a parent himself. 

It’s not that everything suddenly becomes ok – dark humour in the lyrics keeps the song cohesive. ‘Oh it’s so hard being alive / No wonder everybody dies’. But with this twist away from doom, a greater acceptance. In the finale, we realise Del Water Gap hasn’t dusted away the skeletons in his closet, but now he understands why they’re there.

We all have them – and maybe it’s not about pretending they don’t exist, but acknowledging their presence, and carrying on.