Watch a Cassette Player Go Up in Flames in JIMKATA’s “Bonfires”

Last week, Jimkata shared “Bonfires,” the sweeping title track off the self-described “synth-washed electro-rock” band’s forthcoming album. Now the Ithaca / Los Angeles synth rockers are back with an accompanying video premiering below.

“The past few years under this presidency have felt like dropping off into a deep, dark, and ugly abyss from which there may be no return,” says vocalist Evan Friedell, of “Bonfires,” in a statement. “It is easy to long for simpler times where you felt more sure of things. Though the idea that times were ever simpler may be an illusion unto itself. And so we find ourselves having to find the courage to face the flames, move through the ugliness, and hope it’s just a painful transition towards a better world.”

The video is a nostalgic complement to the song, featuring a storyline built around a cassette player that goes up in flames. “Bonfires” is the band’s third single of 2020, following “Wait for You” and “Wanna Go.”

“‘Wait For You’ […] narrates the feeling of being in limbo—sitting around waiting and feeling restless while navigating uncertainty,” Friedell said of the former track. “I didn’t realize at the time I wrote it how prescient and universal that feeling would become as we experience a global pandemic and a world in chaos.”

Of “Wanna Go,” Friedell explained: “It took on an extra layer of meaning for us after the pandemic began and we all started quarantining, stuck in our houses and apartments, staring into our phones, longing for a different world and becoming overly acquainted with our immediate surroundings.”

All three songs will appear on Bonfires—JIMKATA’s seventh studio album—which comes after 2016’s In Motion.

“So by now, if you’ve always followed us, you’re probably wondering what the hell we’re up to,” the band posted on Twitter last week. “To be honest it’s been really hard to resist the urge to just tell you straight up. But now we can. The three years we were away from JIMKATA were transformative for us all. It didn’t take too long before we got restless and started writing new music without knowing whether it would ever get released. At the same time we noticed a constant outpouring of love and support from all of you that reaffirmed our drive to get back out into the world. But for those years we were stuck in the inbetween.”

“As [bandmates] Packy [Lunn], Aaron [Gorsch] and I started to get back to making music, we found this theme repeating itself throughout everything we were working on,” Friedell continued. “So it only makes sense that we name this batch of songs after the first track we created out of this time, Bonfires.”

Bonfires is set for release in Spring 2021. Pre-orders—including limited edition vinyl & more—are available here.