In 2005, the New Yorker called the Mountain Goats leader John Darnielle “America’s best non-hip-hop lyricist.” During the last 20 years, Darnielle has repeatedly confirmed that sobriquet, releasing a dauntless string of albums that have championed outcasts in songs so rich they feel like short stories and film scripts. In the early ’90s, Darnielle launched the Mountain Goats by recording to cassette on a boombox, but the band has since expanded into the lush, imaginative folk-rock ensemble he brings to Spoleto. William Tyler and Yasmin Williams, two of the country’s most acclaimed guitarists, open in a new duo.

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