Rankine

Twenty years ago, the poet, essayist and playwright Claudia Rankine, hailed for Citizen – an original, unnerving and unforgettable scrutiny of racism in the US and winner of the 2015 Forward prize – was involved in a more inward undertaking. She had been reading Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse – and Woolf seems to have become for her, as happens to many readers, a muse of sorts. In the novel, there is a point at which Woolf’s Mrs Ramsay revels in a mind at liberty, “free for the strangest adventures” and observes:…

It starts with a constellation of synthesiser drones and a piano riff that sounds as if it’s being played on crystal chandeliers, and ends with a sample of smashing cups. In between, the Associates’ Party Fears Two is five and a half sweeping minutes of art-pop perfection – a song commonly hailed for the vaulting, otherworldly vocals of mercurial singer Billy Mackenzie yet every bit as much a testament to the songwriting and musicianship of multi-instrumentalist Alan Rankine.Formed by Mackenzie and Rankine between…

Alan Rankine, one half of celebrated Scottish indie band the Associates, has died aged 64. The news was confirmed on Tuesday by his sons, Callum and Hamish, who wrote on Facebook that their father “died peacefully at home shortly after spending Christmas with his family”, describing him as “a beautiful, kind and loving man who will be sorely missed”.Born in Stirlingshire in 1958, Rankine formed the Associates in 1979 with singer Billy Mackenzie, having made early recordings with him under the name Mental Torture. Rankine…