Doors 7pm, Music 8pm

The Suitcase Junket

I thought I heard you call me across the wired empty of every burning memory that made us who we were

- The Suitcase Junket, Don’t Worry From To Go On

Over the past twenty years, intriguingly single-minded songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Matt Lorenz has earned snowballing acclaim for his achingly poetic dark folk as The Suitcase Junket. A solitary artist with an organic yet ornate vision, his seventh album, To Go On is his most acutely profound yet. Created 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. “Kate’s more on my mind than she ever would have been if she was alive, so there’s something sweet in that sadness,” Lorenz mulled from his family homestead in western Massachusetts. “When I’m singing and performing, I feel closer to her.”

Raised in rural Vermont and initially homeschooled, Lorenz and his older sister were unusually bonded even for siblings. Kate taught him to sing and was his first musical collaborator. Her little brother would scavenge and dissect old electronics, bikes, appliances, and watches, building instruments from the parts (he already played piano, violin, saxophone, and guitar). At Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts Lorenz furthered these parallel passions, studying music and adaptive instrument design. After graduation and a year of busking in Europe, he returned to Amherst and formed the band Rusty Belle with his sister. Kate later became a folk-rock solo artist while Lorenz began The Suitcase Junket with a guitar rescued from a dumpster. The Suitcase Junket’s two hundred shows per year included treks across the US and Canada, European excursions, and a genre-straddling array of festivals including Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Winnipeg Folk Festival, and California WorldFest. While Kate contributed vocals to all of Lorenz’s albums and often on stage, The Suitcase Junket was otherwise a truly solo affair in the studio, where he plays every instrument, and at shows, where he performs amidst a DIY cluster of contraptions including a suitcase bass drum, box-of-bones hi-hat, and a saw blade. The Suitcase Junket weds the sensibilities of early blues and rock ‘n’ roll, the improvisational spirit of jazz, and Lorenz’s love of Tom Waits to meticulous, cultured songcraft. Dubbed a “master of musical imagination” by NPR’s World Café Live and “astonishing” by WBUR Boston, Lorenz’s weathered, howl-flecked voice was described by Rochester City Newspaper as “a cross between Hound Dog Taylor and a Tuvan throat singer who has swallowed a bird.” On sixth album The End is New, Lorenz embraced collaboration, notably with producer Steve Berlin of Los Lobos and a guitar feature from J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. The record was hailed as “Lorenz’s best album to date” by New Noise, while Atwood Magazine praised its “impeccable songwriting and sonic execution.” But by the time The End is New dropped in late 2020, COVID had torpedoed touring and Lorenz had become a father. In the summer of 2022, a month before the birth of his second child, his sister passed and an album’s-worth of upbeat material penned in the glow of new parenthood got shelved.

For To Go On, Lorenz reunited with engineer Justin Pizzoferrato (Pixies, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr.) at his Sonelab studio in Easthampton, Massachusetts, where he’d previously recorded extensively with Kate, including the pair contributing harmonies to other artists’ material. “There was a gravity to performing those songs and especially in that studio,” said Lorenz. “In those early days [after Kate’s passing], I would feel closer to her while performing but then would have a really hard time finishing a song or a set, because when I was done, she felt farther away – a sort of emotional hangover.” Similarly, Lorenz has been struggling to finish an EP Kate had left unfinished – his last chance to harmonize with his best friend. This tingling loss-and-longing aura permeates To Go On, its title taken from a line in poignant album standout “Don’t Worry”: we fight hard for the laughter ‘cause it helps us to go on. Like many of Lorenz’s lyrics, it has multiple interpretations: the blank truth of continuing amidst grief, but also having something to go on, something to work with to get through. The rootsy, tremulous “One More Mile,” the first of three singles that precede the album’s October 2026 release, is its sole track written before Kate’s passing. “It’s about another dear friend who was dying. She was in her nineties and died in a way that was very different from Kate,” said Lorenz. “Grief is universal, but it’s as unique as the relationship you lost.” Yet “One More Mile” manages a jaunty, fanfare feel that’s an apt introduction to an album that, especially in its second half, laces sepia-toned sorrow with celebrations of legacy and posthumous love. “There were certainly times when I just wanted to make the saddest record ever,” Lorenz offered. “But I like a well-balanced piece of art, where you can tap your toe, or dance even, and still think about death.” Exquisitely stripped-down follow-up “Put Your Phone Down” channels sisterly advice, its acoustic guitar and finely grained vocal barely embellished. “I wouldn’t be so bold as to say that some sort of ether-based version of Kate was whispering lyrics in my ear,” said Lorenz. “But when songs show up out of nowhere like that, it makes you wonder what you’re connecting to.” Third single “Blindside Memory” is, like the phenomenon it details, full of surprises. Another song addressed to Kate, its almost choral pre-verse makes way for an intimately groovy guitar/vocal verse that sets up its hearty, belting refrain. “When you’re grieving, you still have to do life,” Lorenz considered. “You’re, like, in the cereal aisle, crying and thinking, ‘what the hell?!’”

Lorenz has also created a body of cyanotype-based artwork for the album, which is featured in the forthcoming music video for “One More Mile.” The larger pieces of art will also be on display during the first round of release shows as set pieces and visual representations of the music. Following these special release performances featuring a multi-musician ensemble, The Suitcase Junket will resume solo touring in fall 2026. Every year, Lorenz also performs at Sparkletown, a tribute concert in New England that celebrates his sister’s music and spirit. “If I were to walk through To Go On, it would be a sort of shock into wild confusion and wonder, and then a feeling of excitement, followed by a deep calm that gets heavier ... and then you get a kick in the ass!” Lorenz concluded. “I want people to feel comfort, a little bit of surprise, a little bit of discomfort – and a little bit of mystery. And after all that, a sense of joy and hope.”

https://thesuitcasejunket.com/

Tickets: $22 advance, $27 day of show and on sale now online at https://abilene.showare.com and at the bar