The Suitcase Junket

“A living, breathing, throat-singing, road-tested, avant-garde, one-man-band who is in a state of perpetual motion…". NPR

The Suitcase Junket — the touring project of the artist Matt Lorenz — developed in the tension between the grand and the solitary. Grand in imagery, sound, and staging. Solitary in thrift and self-reliance. NPR calls Lorenz a “master of musical imagination.” What instruments he requires, Lorenz builds from scratch and salvage. What parts five players would perform, he performs alone. The spectacle of the one-man show bears comparison to legends of showmanship, brilliance, madness, and invention. While audiences are captivated by that solitary form and the show itself, Lorenz, who homesteads in Western Massachusetts, is most serious about the songs. The world he writes into existence is crowded with characters, narratives, voices, imagery, sounds as wide and varied as mountain throat singers and roadhouse juke boxes, plus newsreels of the planet’s destruction and salvage. Lorenz’ most recent album The End is New was released at Renew Records / BMG. He is in the studio this winter, recording toward a new release.