STEEL & VELVET People Just Float

Steel & Velvet’s latest release, People Just Float, arrives as both an artistic evolution and a narrative culmination. Following the quiet revelation of “Orphan’s Lament,” which first introduced us to the enigmatic figure of Joshua, this six-track EP expands his story into a full emotional arc. Through folk instrumentation and cinematic storytelling, the trio crafts an experience that feels both introspective and visually rich like reading a novel through sound. The presence of Johann Le Roux’s daughter, Jade, infuses the record with a youthful tenderness that softens its themes of isolation and rediscovery. Her voice threads through the EP like light filtering through dense forest, bringing warmth to Joshua’s solitary world.

People Just Float balances reverence and reinvention. Steel & Velvet interpret works by artists as far-ranging as Nirvana, Robbie Basho, and Peter Ivers, yet the renditions never feel derivative. Instead, the band dissolves genre borders, distilling the essence of each influence into their own acoustic language. The textures are unhurried and transparent guitars resonate like echoes in wood and stone, while subtle vocal layering deepens the atmosphere. Each note feels placed with care, as if the band were tracing emotional footprints rather than composing songs. This meticulous attention to tone allows the EP to act as both a narrative and a meditation on sound itself.

At the heart of the record lies the reimagined “Orphan’s Lament,” transformed from Basho’s meditative piano piece into a guitar-driven elegy. Romuald Ballet-Baz’s arrangement turns reflection into momentum, his phrasing both mournful and redemptive. Jean-Alain Larreur’s intricate work on “Ring of Fire,” “Silver,” and “Lake of Fire” expands this language further, creating delicate, interwoven patterns that feel simultaneously intimate and boundless. By the time “In Heaven” concludes the EP, the listener is left hovering in an almost dreamlike suspension a closing moment that blurs the lines between music and memory, film and feeling.

Loïc Moyou’s accompanying short film reinforces this connection between sound and image, grounding the music’s ethereal tones in the tangible world of Joshua’s story. Together, the visuals and compositions form a portrait of human vulnerability loneliness meeting compassion, silence meeting sound. In just seventeen minutes, People Just Float captures the fragile beauty of stillness and the courage it takes to share it. It’s a haunting, graceful testament to Steel & Velvet’s growing artistry an invitation not merely to listen, but to drift alongside.

Written by Patrick