Newport Live presents The Dead Tongues at the Great Friends Meeting House on Friday, Sept. 25, with doors at 6:30 p.m. and the performance at 7:30.
Ryan Gustafson, the North Carolina songwriter and multi-instrumentalist behind the project, has released a string of albums over the past 15 years — “Dust,” “Unsung Passage,” “Desert” and “Transmigration Blues” — building a reputation for songs that sit somewhere between folk, spectral guitar and something looser. His recent work, the paired albums “Body of Light” and “I Am a Cloud,” came together after a month spent writing alone in a cabin in rural western North Carolina, and features players including Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak and Bon Iver, Matt Douglas of the Mountain Goats and Mat Davidson of Twain.
Mary-Elaine Jenkins opens. A South Carolina native now based in Brooklyn, she has toured Europe and opened for Martha Wainwright, Courtney Marie Andrews and John Craigie, and has played Newport Live before.
Tickets are $35 through Eventbrite. Seating is general admission, with wine and beer available.
Newport Live is a nonprofit that presents music at venues around Newport. The Sept. 25 show is one of two on its fall calendar at historic venues, following Nellie McKay at Belmont Chapel on Sept. 18.
