Level

This one being a real hidden gem for fans of early 80s AOR and pomp rock fans – the one and only album by USA band Level. Level’s 1982 self-titled release is another of those lost classics, a real AOR obscurity that was only ever issued on LP and even that now fetches huge prices. Tommy produced and engineered the album as well as co-writing one track. Here he has again provided the masters for JK Northrup to upgrade, adding the extra track not credited on the LP artwork and an exclusive previously unreleased bonus track.

Level Pi is a one-man project from the Rhineland, stylistically related to the early Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, or Klaus Schulze. The person behind this is a certain Uwe Cremer who is playing all the instruments himself, especially the guitar and the synthesizer. Spherical sounds above which a lonely electrical guitar is majestically floating. Uwe Cremer regards his CD as homage to the days when Krautrock was still young and Pink Floyd still wrote music.

Manchester band whose blend of smooth jazz, sophisticated pop, and funk topped the British charts during the 1980s and '90s. At the beginning of their career, Level 42 was squarely a jazz-funk fusion band, contemporaries of fellow Brit funk groups like Atmosfear, Light of the World, Incognito, and Beggar & Co. By the end of the '80s, however, the band – whose music was instantly recognizable from Mark King's thumb-slap bass technique and associate member Wally Badarou's synthesizer flourishes – had crossed over to the point where they were often classified as sophisti-pop and dance-rock, equally likely to be placed in the context of Sade and the Style Council as any group that made polished, upbeat, danceable pop/rock. The band's commercial peak came with 1985's World Machine, but they continued to record and tour sporadically throughout the '90s and 2000s.

Polydor's Level Best is a thorough, successful overview of the smooth, jazzy British sophisti-pop outfit, containing all of their biggest hits and best material, including the sublime "Something About You." At 18 tracks, it may run a little long, but it still is as comprehensive a summary of Level 42's career as could be hoped.