Bobby Joe Ebola - "Solar Cantata"

Satiric musical duo Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggits announced November 19 as the official release date for Solar Cantata, the band’s first studio release since 2012’s Trainwreck to Narnia. The album was recorded in 75 days beginning in late 2023 at the new Palm and Vine Recording in Cotati, CA, the former location of the North Bay Area’s legendary Prairie Sun Recording. Helming Palm and Vine’s recording console and production duties for Solar Cantata is Gabriel Winter, a studio engineer, producer and multi-instrumentalist who many years ago had been a fan of Bobby Joe Ebola as an eleven year old punk rocker. 

Solar Cantata’s 20 songs showcase the band’s trademark melodic earworms, scathing social satire and unsettling musical storytelling with moments of earnest vulnerability to create glimpses of an unfolding apocalypse; taken together, Solar Cantata asks how we got here, and how we find meaning, and even hope, in a world seemingly bent on self-destruction. 

The new album explores a wide range of genres, from hard rock and folk rock to big band and heavy metal, from funk to punk to klezmer and beyond. Solar Cantata’s ambitious musicality and cinematic scale are brought to life by over 50 musicians including Frank Piegaro (Worriers, Plot 66, Leftover Crack), Gabriel Winter (Junior Toots, Dubcraft), Noaa Rienecker (solo artist, NPR's Tiny Desk Top Shelf finalist), Jason Willer (Charger, Jello Biafra & the Guantanamo