Martin Rushent, the man behind The Human League‘s incredible ‘Love and Dancing’ remix album from 1982, has passed away.

Rushent described working on Love and Dancing during an interview in 2007:
“The dub mixes started because we didn’t have time to do ‘B’ sides, We’d send Virgin Records a track and they’d want to rush-release it. I’d been listening to Grandmaster Flash and played it to Phil (Oakey). He liked it so I suggested doing a remix of “Love Action” by chopping it up and adding effects, then we could get Virgin off our backs!

When it was all finished I had four or five remixes. Phil wasn’t sure about releasing them on an album and left me to make Love and Dancing on my own. It was mixed on a board, so I had the multitrack of Dare feeding in, a Harmonizer on send one, delay lines and phasers everywhere and I’d flick it about. I’d do a section and if I liked it I’d make a tape cut and splice it in. There were thousands of edits on the master and it took forever to do.”

This album was a major inspiration when I was young and continues to be today. Synth pop twisted and remixed before the genre really existed and any rules were set in stone. This predated the Art of Noise and Trevor Horn‘s remix frenzies and, I’m fairly certain, could probably lay claim to being the first remix album. Certainly one by a chart-topping band at any rate.