THE SUITCASE JUNKET – AN ARTIST SPOTLIGHT & INTERVIEW
By Ralph Beauchamp
The Suitcase Junket is the musical project of songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Matt Lorenz. Lorenz‘s sound fuses elements of Americana, roots rock and folk but he adds a surprising twist. The Suitcase Junket‘s inventive use of homemade and repurposed instrument creates music that is both innovative and intriguing. He incorporates gas cans, pots and pans and other salvaged materials in order to devise songs that feel dynamic and enterprising.
Lorenz’s voice has a remarkable intimate rasp that shifts between emotive inflections and gritty expressions. His songwriting features profound storytelling and cinematic lyrics. The Suitcase Junket easily creates atmospheric sonic gems that envelop his listeners with purely organic textures. His songs often have a strong haunting and mysterious aura which forges a deeply imaginative ambiance.
The Suitcase Junket‘s just released a new single entitled “One More Mile” off his upcoming seventh album, To Go On via Bad Chef Records/Symphonic. The full length was written in the wake of losing his sister, singer-songwriter Kate Lorenz. It’s a tender, beautiful, and arrestingly moving record; an internal dialogue and conversation with the departed, enormously resonant to anyone who ever loved anyone.
Whether performing acoustic ballads or energetic bluesy anthems, The Suitcase Junket delivers an incredible listening experience full of miraculous wonders and expansive bewilderment. His novel instrumental marvels totally enhances his artistic identity. The Suitcase Junket lives on the cutting-edge and his fans love every moment.
The Suitcase Junket was kind enough to sit for this interview.
AMP: Some sounds in your music are instantly recognizable while others leave listeners wondering, “What made that sound?”. How important is mystery in your recordings?
TSJ: I love creating a sense of mystery in music, something that makes you lean forward and wonder. I also understand a certain comfort is necessary for the song itself to come through and not be buried under the questions of the listening ear, so finding that balance is important.
Folks hearing the act live for the first time will still sometimes get that acousmatic experience when I do the overtone singing. (I think Pythagoras discovered the concept of deeper listening through limiting the sense of sight.) These days it’s trickier to do on albums because the ability to synthesize new and previously unfathomable sounds is wildly easy, but I still prefer the “from scratch” approach of unusually toned instruments vibrating in the air of a room as opposed to digital synthesis.
AMP: Do lyrics usually come before the sonic landscape or does an unusual sound inspire a song?
TSJ: This varies song to song. I try to keep a few different creative channels open at any given time to keep the writer’s block at bay, so sometimes I will start with a guitar idea, or a lyric or a melody or a rhythmic vamp and sometimes I just steal from the birds or the whine of a distant lawnmower.
AMP: Your voice often shifts from intimate storytelling to something almost elemental. Is that contrast intentional?
TSJ: It is now. I think I learned the power of that kind of emotional contrast from years of touring and playing with the vibe of a room. It also took a long time for me to grow into my quiet voice. I’ve always loved the physical feeling of shouting and belting and hollering which probably came from learning to sing as a busker, but finding the strength in the intimate was a slower discovery for me.
AMP: Your music draws from folk traditions, Americana, garage rock and experimental sound art. Are there artists who influence your soundscapes that would surprise your fans?
TSJ: I don’t know if I can surprise that lot anymore, but I studied with Yusef Lateef and he influenced me a ton. Brian Eno, Pauline Oliveros, Alanis Morissette, Ma Rainey, Shooby Taylor, the Shags, do I have to stop? This is fun.
AMP: Your new single is “One More Mile”. Can you give us a little insight into the track?
TSJ: It’s basically a love song about being away and touring a ton and you’re finally about to get back home to your sweetheart but there’s this current of uncertainty in there, this concern that you might always be a mile away and that home is an everchanging conceptual space that you can only hope will still be there for you when you finally roll into the driveway.
AMP: Have there been moments when an instrument failed live and led you somewhere musically unexpected?
TSJ: Oh definitely. One of the pitfalls of using homemade and janky gear is that it sometimes does fail in surprising ways. For a while it was always a footdrum of some kind, like the kick pedal busting through the suitcase and getting stuck in there and then all of a sudden you’re in a dramatic musical break that you didn’t plan on with no bass drum sound.
It was always mildly panic inducing when it happened, but I definitely utilized that exact move of making sudden and alarming arrangement decisions after going through those moments. Like after the show thinking “that was fucked up, but there’s something I can use in there.”
AMP: Has working with producers changed the way you think about space and dynamics in your music?
TSJ: Absolutely. For the first few records I made I pretty much just went in live, did my songs, maybe added a harmony here and there and called it a day. Working with a producer, Steve Berlin in particular, really expanded my ears and my listening for what’s possible.
It was always about serving the song, but the approach to the recording and the overdubbing and the expansion of the sonic palette really opened up through working with him. Plus the bigger and fuller the sound gets, the more stark and striking and heavy the silence becomes.
AMP: Many of your songs wrestle with hope, uncertainty and resilience. How do those ideas shape the sounds you choose as much as the words you write?
TSJ: With each album, and each song really, there’s the desire to find a convergence of emotion and sound and poetry and it always comes down to a matter of feel. I sometimes find it hard to figure out what I’m looking for, but it’s easier to hear what isn’t working.
So getting the sound to match the feelings is a lot of trial and error but always worth the time. I find it one of the longer but more rewarding parts of the process. I think, like a lot of things, it gets a little easier the more you do it. As for those words you chose in particular, I think they’re apt descriptors of what I’m after. Hope lifts you up, uncertainty crashes you down, resiliency steels you. Rinse, repeat. It’s a good emotional ride.
AMP: Is there a sound you have been chasing for years that you still haven’t found?
TSJ: Yes. But I’ll never tell. I kid. Or do I? The thing is, the instrument that I’m pretty sure will do the thing I’m looking for doesn’t exist yet so I have to build it, but it’s like describing a rhinoceros to someone who’s never seen one. (I stole that from somebody but I don’t remember who.) Actually it would sort of sound like a rhinoceros looks, I suppose. I will call it the rhinocophone when it’s made.
AMP: What do you hope listeners notice on a second or third listen that they probably missed the first time?
TSJ: I think I’d pick the lyrical turns of phrase that have multiple meanings and change for people as they relisten. Those lines that become your favorite after they get you by surprise on the third time around.
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