Level 42

(UK)

One of the pioneering units in British jazz funk and dance rock! Having lived its hay day through the 80’s, Level 42 split in 1994, but re-activated in 2001 and has ever since been flying high. The current line-up is still run by vocalist and thumb slapping bass master Mark King. Other power point of the band, keyboardist Mike Lindup, is also there.

When Level 42 started at the dawn of the 80’s, it was purely an instrumental jazz funk unit, but at the suggestion of their record company, they started to think of incorporating vocals into their sound. Finally Mark King took on vocal duties. That led to another trade mark of the band, on top of Mark’s amazing bass technique, as they found out that Lindup’s falsetto background vocals complimented King’s deep tenor perfectly. The third remarkable feature was outside member Wally Badarou’s synthesizer sounds. With this combination top 10 hits, like Lessons In Love, Something About You and Running In The Family, soon started to arrive, not to mention countless top 40 songs. Level 42 has so far released 11 studio albums and several live albums, like the recent Acoustic Album.