Associates co-founder Alan Rankine dies aged 64

The musician and producer Alan Rankine, co-founder of acclaimed Scottish band The Associates, has died aged 64.

Rankine's sons Callum and Hamish confirmed the news on the guitarist and keyboard player's Facebook page.

They said their father died peacefully at home shortly after spending Christmas with his family.

Rankine formed the Associates, whose biggest hit was Party Fears Two, with singer Billy Mackenzie in Dundee in 1979.

They released three albums before Rankine left the band in 1982.

His sons said their father was a "beautiful, kind, and loving man who will be sorely missed."

They said his social media account would be kept open for friends and fans to celebrate his life.

Fellow musicians, including Duglas T Stewart from BMX Bandits, and Danny Wilson singer Gary Clark paid tribute to Rankine online.

Writer David Stubbs, who recently interviewed the musician, said on Twitter that Rankine and Billy Mackenzie were "the perfect pairing."

He wrote: "In The Associates, they made a still-living, still vibrant, unmatched thing of myriad, enigmatic and unmatched beauty."

After leaving The Associates, Rankine released three solo albums and worked with artists including Paul Haig and Belle and Sebastian.

In 1992 Rankine founded Electric Honey Records, the record label run by the students on the music business course at Stow College, now known as Glasgow Kelvin College.

The label's best-known release was Belle and Sebastian's debut album Tigermilk, with the band's drummer Richard Colburn previously describing Rankine as the "heart and soul of the course."