Steel & Velvet open their EP with a prayer anthem, “Orphan’s Lament”
Courtesy of Steel & Velvet
Steel & Velvet open their “People just float” EP with “Orphan’s Lament,” a remake of the 1978 Robbie Basho track, and introduce Joshua, the main character, through a room awash in yearning. Where Basho once sat down at the piano, and Romuald Ballet-Baz instead rewrites the entry point on finger-picked guitar, relying on the pentatonic vocabulary Basho favored. The re-voicing is interpretive, a way of turning the same prayer toward a new century without stripping out its marrow.
The band intentionally lowers the key, and that choice falls like wet earth on a lid that is darker, more grave, and somehow more humane. Johann Le Roux’s voice performs and lives the country’s sorrow. You can hear the breath-stopping restraint between lines, a determination not to over-ornament a song that’s about those who learned early that no one is coming.
Born in 2021 out of a friendship formed between classically trained Bretons Le Roux and Ballet-Baz, with rattling blues-rock guitarist Jean-Alain Larreur joining the duo shortly thereafter. In a folk-rock world often predicated on crescendo and confession, Steel & Velvet begin by doing the opposite, by creating space. The effect is seismic in its hush, and the first track functions as a prelude and blessing.
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The official music writer on Landon Buford.
