Skylar Gudasz’s signature structured lilt is crisp enough to cut a soft evening breeze and tender enough to mimic it. Performing from an upstairs window at the Carolina Theatre on Halloween last year, she filled the downtown airwaves with the celestial noir of her lauded sophomore release, Cinema: “Like the sun, I get down / Drape the day in a midnight black gown.” In this outdoor performance, expect to hear samples of the next sonic shape-shift for this Durham stalwart…

Within a single album, Ryan Gustafson’s metaphysical folk project The Dead Tongues can shift between landscape panorama and domestic still-life. Take, for example, the first chorus of last year’s Transmigration Blues track “Strangers” — “All my friends / cut their long hair, settled down / they’re acting like strangers” — which reads as both a droll pandemic portrait and poignant social commentary. A frequent performer with the likes of Hiss Golden Messenger and Phil Cook, the now Western North Carolina-based…