Level 42 open the vaults with two limited vinyl runs

Forty Two is already out on Coalface, the all-analogue debut follows in the Thousand Club series, and January 2027 includes headline dates in W?naka and Taup?.

Level 42 have issued two limited vinyl packages within weeks of each other and confirmed the band's first New Zealand headline dates for their 2027 summer run.

Forty Two, a double LP of instrumental material from 1980 to 1982, was released on 25 September through Coalface Records. The set draws on tracks from the first three albums and 12-inch B-sides. It is a numbered edition of 1,000 copies pressed on black and yellow vinyl, with an OBI-strip, matt lamination and printed inner sleeves. Geoff Pesche mastered the cut at Abbey Road. Gilles Peterson supplies the liner notes, while Mark King, Wally Badarou, Phil Gould and Mike Lindup contribute new commentary. The band announced the project on 10 August.

On 16 September a second physical announcement followed: a reissue of the 1981 debut album Level 42 in the Thousand Club series. The pressing is all-analogue, cut from the master tapes, limited to 1,000 numbered copies and sold through thousand.club. Taken together, the two packages are the band's first new physical releases in recent months.

From the Isle of Wight outwards

Level 42 formed on the Isle of Wight in 1979 and built a jazz-funk reputation that carried them to a string of UK and worldwide hits through the 1980s and 1990s. The debut album arrived in 1981. The Early Tapes followed the same year, and The Pursuit of Accidents in 1982 — the stretch of work that feeds Forty Two. Standing In the Light (1983), the live set A Physical Presence (1985), World Machine (1985) and Running In the Family (1987) marked the climb into the broader charts. Later years brought further studio and live records, then a run of archival collections: Something About You: The Collection in 2015, Eternity Tour (2018), and in 2022 separate volumes of 12-inch singles and mixes, 7-inch singles, B-sides and bonus tracks. A remastered Live in Switzerland appeared in 2023.

Forty Two returns the listener to the instrumental side of that opening chapter — the studio grooves and B-side pieces that sat alongside the early singles rather than under them. Framing the set as an instrumental record rather than another hits package treats that side of the catalogue as more than a footnote. Cut at Abbey Road and annotated by the musicians who made the original sessions, it gives the early work a clear physical shape. The Thousand Club reissue of the debut does a parallel job for the first full statement: a short run, all-analogue, aimed at listeners who want the album as an object rather than a stream. For a band whose later years have been marked by touring and selective archive drops — the 2022 singles and B-sides sets among them — two numbered vinyl editions in a single season amount to a sharper signal than the group has sent in some time.

January dates in New Zealand

On 24 September the official site confirmed the first New Zealand headline shows of the 2027 summer tour: 30 January in W?naka and 31 January in Taup?. Early ticket access is available via a sign-up on the site. The same day Mark King spoke about a long-awaited Australia tour planned for January 2027.

Those dates remain some months away. In the meantime the vinyl editions give a concrete route back into the early catalogue, while the tour news sketches the next international chapter after a quiet spell on both physical releases and overseas live dates.