Jimkata Pair Five New Songs With Three Live Cuts on 'Running in Place'

Ithaca band Jimkata released Running in Place on September 4, 2024, an eight-track album that puts five new studio songs ahead of three live recordings. It is the band’s seventh studio album.

The studio side runs “Follow Me” at 3:42, “Off the Rails” at 4:52, “As it Comes” at 4:20, the title track at 4:28 and “Keep Me Up” at 3:56.

The record then turns to the stage for “Intro/Sweet Glory (Live)” at 3:30, “Wild Ride (Live)” at 7:28 and “Mind Crossing (Live),” the last of those running 12 minutes and 8 seconds and taking up more than a quarter of the album’s running time on its own.

The eight tracks total 44 minutes and 24 seconds, with the three live recordings accounting for slightly more than half of that. The band published full lyrics for all five studio songs alongside the release.

It follows the band’s Bonfires, released in 2021.

Four players, four sets of duties

Evan Friedell handles vocals, guitar, synths, lyrics and production. Aaron Gorsch plays synths and guitar and shares production. Packy Lunn plays drums, percussion and samples and also produces. Cooper Casterline plays bass.

Casterline’s addition is what let the band stretch the material out live, which is where the three concert tracks on the record come from.

From Oneonta to Ithaca

Friedell, Lunn and Gorsch grew up together in Oneonta and began playing together in 1998. They got serious about forming a band once they reached college in Ithaca, and Jimkata was officially created there in the fall of 2005.

Jimkata’s Bandcamp page describes the group as “a nationally touring electro-rock band blending heavy beats, synthy hooks, and big guitars.”

An electro-rock band with a country-song habit

The band’s own billing runs: “A hard hitting dance party with soaring guitar riffs and soul tickling lyrics.”

Alongside the synths and the indie rock, the band cites Motown, singer-songwriters and old country songs as reference points, the common thread being storytelling and a quick turn of phrase carrying as much weight as melody and beat.

Popdose has described the band’s sound as having a “bubbly sweetness,” and American Songwriter praised its “organic chemistry.”

Back after a hiatus

Jimkata reunited in 2019 after time apart, and Bonfires followed in 2021. A comeback tour behind that record opened in January 2022 in Colorado and carried on to California and Arizona.

The group is a quartet again, and it takes Running in Place out on a national run behind the record.

Sources: Jimkata on Bandcamp, Jimkata, The Ithacan, NYS Music, Jambands.com, Servin Talent Agency, Adirondack Independence Music Festival.

Photo: Arkady Lifshits, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Generic crowd image, not this event.