The Suitcase Junket


The Suitcase Junket is the solo project of the American, New England multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Matthew Lorenz, whose songwriting draws on American forms of urban blues, rural ballads, and roadhouse rock. “The overall sound lands somewhere between the Avett Brothers and early, dirty Black Keys. There’s a Tom Waits vibe in the fuzzy-megaphone reverb mic, and something ancient, near tribal, in his whistles and moans.”

Career

In 2016, a writer in Rochester, New York, heard The Suitcase Junket's show at Abilene Bar & Lounge and described the rig and the music: ”Now this is the shit I'm talking about, Jack. The Suitcase Junket is a lo-fi, low-tuned, low-down blast of end-times folk blues. It's crude; it's magnificent. With a stage set-up that resembles a junkyard foley stage or Fred Sanford's living room, The Suitcase Junket — one man band leader Matt Lorenz — incants and intones like a cross between Hound Dog Taylor and a Tuvan throat singer who has swallowed a bird. Take the singer-songwriter idiom, give it a low grade fever and a guitar and this is what you get. Captivating, mesmerizing, and gone... real gone."
This musician employs a self-taught overtone singing technique in his live and recorded performances.
National Public Radio chose sessions from the 2015 album Make Time as one of their fifteen favorite sessions of that year, and The Suitcase Junket was named to Spotify's Best of 2016 Folk & Americana and Blues & Roots Rock playlists.
A visual artist who works in many mediums, Lorenz design his own album art until 2019. Mean Dog, Trampoline, released April 5, 2019, from Signature Sounds Recordings, was produced by Steve Berlin of Los Lobos.

Discography

Studio albums
EPs