The Suitcase Junket
to
Cafe Carpe, Fort Atkinson 18 S. Water St., Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin 53538
Joanna Chattman
The Suitcase Junket: Matt Lorenz.
press release: Between two full-length, solo rock albums of 2017 and 2019, The Suitcase Junket [solo multi-insrumentalist Matt Lorenz] releases a surprise May '18 EP, entitled Live With Others. The EP consists of six tracks recorded live in concert with special guests from the New England music scene, including Boston string band Twisted Pine, bluesman Tim Gearan, Kate Lorenz of Kate Lorenz and The Constellations, James Rohr and Mike Castellana of the Blue Ribbons, Isa Burke of Lula Wiles, and wildcard Barry Rothman who plays turntables and musical toys.
“Without any doubt you expect to hear the skeleton” are the first words to hit your ears and it’s a wild ride from there into the spaced-out, psychedelic slow jam of “Sandman,” which was improvised on the spot when performed, like most of the tracks on the EP, at Atwoods Tavern in Cambridge, MA. A fierce and punchy punk tune cranks up in the irreverent “New Undertaker,” which tells of a corpse falling in love with its mortician. Matt Lorenz, the human behind The Suitcase Junket, alleges that the chorus of this song was heard in a dream and woke him up laughing. “In My Name” was recorded at Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, NY, and is the only track without other musicians sitting in, though Lorenz credits the crowd at Lena’s in the album notes, and they do shout out here and there between the growling slide guitar lines. “End of the Day,” which was originally released on the album Make Time in 2015, showcases the musicianship of the group Twisted Pine, who had supposedly never heard the song before performing it.
“Once I had folks up on stage for the song we had decided to do together," says Lorenz, "I usually tried to keep them there to see what would happen. Being a one-man-band, I get pretty pumped on the energy of playing with other people, and the spontaneity of it made for some pretty interesting moments.” Tim Gearan brings his formidable blues chops to bear on the song “She Got” and it all wraps up with a spooky, laid-back version of “Spell on You” by Jay Hawkins, featuring Matt’s sister Kate Lorenz on vocals. “I’ve been playing more with other people lately and I wanted to get a little snapshot of these collaborations out into the world without a lot of fuss and fanfare. So here it is.”
The Suitcase Junket is MATT LORENZ: artist, tinkerer, swamp yankee, one-man band. His is the road-worn voice rising over the grind of a tube-amped dumpster guitar, and the wild double pitches of throat singing. From Lorenz’ penchant for thrift and ingenuity comes his original rock anthems, mountain ballads, blues manifestos and dance-hall festivity. His music is magnificent, rousing, image-driven songwriting, layed out on instruments built of broken bottles, thrift store forks, dried bones, gas cans, shoes, saw blades, a toy keyboard, salvaged instruments, and an overhead compartment’s worth of luggage.
Matt was raised in Cavendish, Vermont, the son of schoolteachers. He learned to sing by copying his sister Kate; the siblings are two-thirds of the touring trio Rusty Belle. Lorenz graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2004, having taught himself to throat-sing, inspired by a South Indian cooking class. On moving day, he pulled a guitar, filled with mold and worse for wear, from a dorm dumpster. He fixed it up and started pulling songs out of it. That was the beginning.
Since then, The Suitcase Junket has built a powerful fan base in his native New England and far beyond. Festival plays — past and forthcoming — include Mountain Jam, FloydFest, FreshGrass, Green River Festival, Hardly Strictly Bluegrsas, Joshua Tree, and Winnipeg Folk. The Suitcase Junket has combined streams of 1.25 million on Spotify and was named to Spotify’s Best of 2016 Folk & Americana and Blues & Roots Rock playlists. Lorenz caught the attention of National Public Radio who chose his video session for “Earth Apple” from his 2015 album Make Time as one of the year’s favorite sessions. His music puts him in the company of artists working the border of Americana and rock — Shovels & Rope, M. Ward, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes, Sam Amidon, Alabama Shakes, and The Record Company.