Germany’s Tramp Records are about to release the third volume in their eclectic series ‘PRAISE POEMS’.

The idea behind ‘Praise Poems’ is to seek out and anthologise rare and esoteric indie soul and jazz and offer it as a challenge to what label bosses called “the bourgeois excesses of the soul and jazz-fusion genres”.

Well you can make up your own minds about that, just to say that amongst the 19 cuts here there are some extraordinary pieces of music… many certainly do offer a challenge. Take ‘The Loving Side Of Me’ from someone simply called Lexington. When she begins you’d think you’d stumbled across a Dionne Warwick out take, but when Ms L takes off she reveals a stridency that Dionne never ever displayed!

Fans of 70s jazz fusion will enjoy stuff like ‘West 15th Street Strut’ from the Donald Byrd influenced Rosewood Trio, while if you enjoy misery and melancholy go straight to the album closer ‘Listen Baby’ from Abraham Battat. More challenges? Well what about an odd reading of ‘Nature Boy’ from a quirky Jennie Misty backed by, of all things, what sounds like a steel band. Much more straightforward is the gentle lounge jazz of ‘Love Is Like The First Day Of Spring’ from Shebbi Smart. Yep, something for every taste and mood here.

PRAISE POEMS 3 is released on Tramp Records on 12th February.