G. Love & Special Sauce

Despite emerging in the same year that Beck released his Mellow Gold debut, G Love is still a relative unknown in the UK. It's a shame, because the Philadephian's take on slacker hip-hop deserves a wider audience, not just for the deep soul, funk and even country grooves that he entices the listener to embrace, but for the inventiveness of his format. Steeped in blues licks, the album was recorded practically live with just an acoustic trio of upright bass, piano and drums accompanying G Love's guitar. Admittedly the vocals, which veer too much toward a lounge singer trying to do a lazy rap, are an acquired taste, but several years on, this album sounds fresh and at the end of the day all it really lacked was a killer track like "Loser". --Tim Perry

Label: Unknown
Studio: Okeh
Released: 1994-06-09
Format: Audio CD