That the Good Ones have been able to release three previous albums and have them distributed to western audiences is something of a miracle. A small, very raw folk group from the farmlands of Rwanda whose poignant reflections on hardship and despair are sung with an unwarranted sense of optimism, they are a tough sell, even among the world music market. And yet, that same dichotomy of brutal honesty and hope so well represents the human condition that their music at times feels almost magnetic. Recorded once again by globetrotting American producer Ian Brennan and his wife, Italian-Rwandan filmmaker Marilena Umuhoza Delli, the Good Ones' fourth album, Rwanda, You See Ghosts, I See Sky, is an earthy, wholly unadorned collection of acoustic songs captured live on singer/guitarist Adrien Kazigira's farm. Aside from the modest global recognition earned from the group's previous albums, little has changed, at least in terms of approach, since Brennan first visited Kazigira's farm in 2010. In fact, this may be the band's most Spartan and heartbreaking album yet.
Stripped of the subtly overdubbed guest contributions (Corin Tucker, Nels Cline, Joe Lally) that marked 2019's ANTI-released RWANDA, You Should Be Loved, the Good Ones are again presented here in their barest form, namely as the duo of Kazigira and singer/percussionist Janvier Havugimana. Sung in their native Kinyarwanda language, but with song titles translated into very literal English phrases, this collection draws heavily on the members' personal experiences surviving the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In dissecting their country's greatest atrocity, the Good Ones are somehow able to insert the hopeful tone that is one of their hallmarks on "The Darkness Has Passed (Genocide 1959-1994)" and the gorgeous "Forgiveness Can Be Found," the latter boasting a percussion part that sounds like hands dipping in and out of water. The western influence of electric distortion imbues the dark tone of "My Son Has Special Needs, But There's Nowhere for Him to Go" and they later offer a rather revealing perspective on American freedoms with "USA (An Unimaginable Beauty)." The Good Ones are a unique entity whose ability to process unimaginable horrors and pair them with utterly sweet love songs should be required listening for jaded westerners who think they've got it tough.