Basho's original, from his "Visions of the Country" album, possessed a crystalline, almost liturgical quality on piano. What Romuald Ballet-Baz has achieved in his guitar adaptation borders on the alchemical. Using the fingerpicking technique Basho himself championed on his own guitar work, Ballet-Baz doesn't simply transpose the piece—he reimagines its architecture entirely. The pentatonic scale that introduces the track immediately signals we've entered sacred territory, that borderland between folk tradition and spiritual inquiry that Basho spent his career exploring.
The decision to transpose the piece to a lower key proves inspired rather than merely practical. Where Basho's piano version floated in the upper registers, Ballet-Baz's arrangement grounds itself, finding earthier resonances that complement Johann Le Roux's vocal timbre perfectly. Le Roux's voice carries a gravitas that feels both ancient and immediate, as though channelling generations of loss while remaining utterly present to this particular moment of grief. His classical training reveals itself not in ornamentation but in breath control, in the way he shapes phrases with the kind of attention typically reserved for art song.
The connection between Ballet-Baz and Le Roux—both classically trained Bretons who've chosen to work in folk idioms—manifests as genuine musical conversation rather than mere accompaniment. Ballet-Baz's fingers navigate Basho's melodic terrain with the precision his classical background demands, yet never at the expense of emotional immediacy. Each plucked note rings with intention, the sustain allowed to decay naturally, creating those pregnant silences that give the piece its meditative quality.
That Steel & Velvet chose this particular Basho composition to open their new project reveals considerable aesthetic intelligence. "Orphan's Lament" carries, as they note, a universal aura—its dedication to orphans speaks to anyone who's experienced abandonment, literal or metaphorical. As an introduction to Joshua, their film's protagonist, it establishes him as someone shaped by absence, by what's missing rather than what remains. The choice also positions Steel & Velvet within a lineage of artists—from Basho to their beloved Mark Lanegan—who understood that the most profound statements often arrive stripped of excess.
The track benefits immeasurably from the production values Steel & Velvet have made their signature. The recording captures every string squeak, every subtle shift in Le Roux's breathing, every harmonic that rings out from Ballet-Baz's guitar. This isn't the obsessive detail of audiophile fetishism but rather the clarity required to honour Basho's vision—music that demands you lean in, that refuses to compete with distraction.
One might question whether a group should open their second EP with a cover, particularly when they've demonstrated songwriting capability with pieces like "Poppy Field." Yet this concern dissolves in practice. "Orphan's Lament" functions less as cover and more as interpretation, the way a great actor doesn't simply recite Shakespeare but finds new depths in familiar text. Steel & Velvet have absorbed Basho's piece so thoroughly that it emerges bearing their fingerprints, speaking in their accent while honouring the original dialect.
"Orphan's Lament" ultimately reminds us that covering songs needn't be an act of nostalgia or tribute but can constitute genuine artistic statement. Steel & Velvet haven't merely preserved Robbie Basho's 1978 composition—they've carried it forward, found new soil for it to root in, discovered what it might say to audiences nearly five decades removed from its creation. That they've done so while introducing their own narrative character and aesthetic project only deepens the achievement. The orphans Basho sang for have found worthy advocates in these Breton musicians, who understand that the profoundest consolation often arrives in the simplest arrangements: a voice, a guitar, and the courage to let silence do its work.
