https://youtu.be/SW5PqcvCWao
https://youtu.be/3pghdpstkSA

Guitars, lead vocals: Adrien Kazigira
Harmony vocals, tambourine and found percussion: Janvier Havugimana

Cello: Gordon Withers
Violin: Matvei Sigalov

Produced, engineered & mixed by Ian Brennan

Recorded 100% live and without overdubs in a single afternoon.
All string parts were improvised first takes.

The Good Ones: album discography

Kigali Y’ Izahabu (2010)
Rwanda Is My Home (2015)
Rwanda, You Should Be Loved (2019)
Rwanda … you see ghosts, I see sky (2022)

“As welcoming as any porch-recorded music you’ve heard.”
— Fader

“How can songs be so mournful and so uplifting at once?”
— The Independent (UK)

The celebrated Rwandan folk duo returns with a resonant fifth album, Rwanda Sings with Strings. The record combines their signature earthy vocals and acoustic
instrumentation (guitar and hand percussion) with atmospheric cello and violin arrangements, creating a soundscape that vividly brings to life their
powerful stories of resilience, memory, and longing.

Recorded 100% live without overdubs in a hotel room by Grammy-winning producer Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Parchman Prison Project), the album delivers an unusually intimate listening experience. Reflective, unfiltered and deeply human.

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For The Good Ones’ fifth album, the band’s producer, Ian Brennan scheduled a cellist and violinist to accompany the duo. The entire album was recorded in single takes without written scores or demos. The arrangements were improvised on the fly by the two string players who also didn’t know each other. Within minutes of meeting all four musicians were recording— their only communication, musical.

“It was all an experiment,” reports producer Ian Brennan, “but the second the strings entered during the intro of ‘Agnes Dreams of Being an Artist,’ it felt like the room began levitating and there was no doubt that something magical and profoundly beautiful was occurring. The album is extraordinarily ethereal— even by their high standards.”

The session fulfilled the group’s long-held dream to have main writer, guitarist, and lead vocalist, Adrien Kazigira’s songs performed w.......
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