Lucky Dumpling by Moonpools and Caterpillars

Lucky Dumpling, the 1995 album from Moonpools & Caterpillars, took the California-based Filipino American band out of the clubs and up to Woodstock, New York, where Richard Gottehrer and Jeffrey Lesser produced it. Up to then the only album they had to show was The Pink Album, a live set taped at the Whisky a Go Go.

Singer Kimi Ward Encarnacion wrote the words, and the band meant the music to be upbeat and positive, which it is, with a crooked twist. Her voice leaps from falsetto yodels to yelps and whoops, while her husband Jay Jay Encarnacion's guitar swings between ethereal shimmer and wall-of-sound roar, with Tim DePala on bass and Gugut Salgado on drums. "Trampling Rose" even goes country, banjos and all. Trouser Press called the whole thing absolutely wonderful, and first single "Hear" found a second life in a Volkswagen Drivers Wanted commercial. They took it on a North American tour.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.