Ian Rankin

It is perhaps inevitable that, as you open Ian Rankin's cupboard to look at his CDs, you expect to find John Rebus's record collection staring back at you: Jethro Tull, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and a full complement of Rolling Stones albums. A cursory inspection reveals some recent remasters of the latter (he's named three of his books after Stones albums) but Ian Rankin is still just about able to draw a line between himself and the hard-drinking gumshoe with whom he has become synonymous.

'As time's gone on, I've probably become a lot more like him: I drink at his bar and I like to be one on one with my music late at night. But Rebus is a product of his generation - perhaps we all are to an extent, although he's not going to empty a bottle of Scotch to something by a new band like Franz Ferdinand.'

But it's more than conceivable that his creator might. Now 43, Rankin says he finds himself surprised to be keeping abreast of 'all sorts of new sounds'. He quotes a pointed aside in a Private Eye review - 'something like, "His books are just an excuse to tell us what's in his record collection"' - with a look of pride rather than annoyance. 'It doesn't bother me, because it's made the books better. When I started, I had Rebus listening to Coleman Hawkins and Miles Davis, because I thought that's what all existential loner types listened to. But then Sixties and Seventies rock came into it, because before punk came along I'd fallen victim to the excesses of prog rock. That's why I find The Darkness so difficult to get into. I was there the first time around and I've got the Yes albums to prove it.'

Punk hit him late - he cites an Edinburgh University show by a formative version of Simple Minds as a turning point. 'The next thing you know, I had a long black greatcoat and I was fronting my own band.' Back in Fife, where he had been brought up, this must have caused some consternation. 'Not a bit of it. The fact that I looked like someone from the Depression must have brought back lots of memories for them.' Bravely, he digs out a cassette with 'DANCING PIGS' written on it in Biro - the name of the band who helped him set his early poetry to music. The best song boasts the unforgettable couplet: 'Mushrooms growing in the park/ They help me when it gets too dark.'

In the Rebus books, the increased prominence of his young female sidekick Siobhan, has mirrored Rankin's own musical progress. 'I can't have Rebus listening to the likes of Boards of Canada or Belle and Sebastian, so it was nice to funnel some of them into his younger sidekick.' As we speak, it's the sprawling seismo-rock of Mogwai's 1997 EP 4 Satin that floods the rafters of Rankin's spacious Georgian abode. 'As well as Kid A and Amnesiac by Radiohead, that's been the soundtrack to the last three books.'

As a rule, Rankin tends to prefer music that isn't too intrusive yet sets the mood, although dance music and electronica - both of which might fit the bill - are conspicuous by their absence.

He also describes himself as 'a touch adrift' with folk music, although he hopes to make amends with a current project - a spoken-word short story interspersed with songs by Scots folk giant Jackie Leven. He's less optimistic about his chances with world music ('a term I hate anyway') and rap music. 'Why? Because we don't get that much gang warfare in Edinburgh. Besides, if I'm up here listening to Eminem, what are my children going to listen to?'

Well, what do they listen to?

'Now there's a thing. My 11-year-old wanted a box set of Beethoven's symphonies for Christmas. Lord knows where he got that from, but it certainly wasn't me!'

The diagnosis
The patient's tastes follow a consistent line from T-Rex and Bowie via post-punk to left-field indie. He wants to hear modern folk, and could do with indigenous music from further afield - and maybe some hip hop

To bridge the gap between the patient's tastes and those of his classically minded son, the Doctor first prescribes Chrisopher O'Riley's True Love Waits - an album of Radiohead songs arranged as piano pieces. Next, plugging obvious gaps, Winter Woods by Cardiff's Charlotte Greig, which mixes up folk songs with her own tunes and a Sonic Youth cover, and the folk-based psychedelic strangeness of One Star Awake by Wigwam.

Also Mali Music - recordings from Damon Albarn's 'working holiday' in Africa - and The Hour of Two Lights by Terry Hall & Mushtaq. The Doctor also felt that the nocturnal quality of Metaphor by Detroit techno boffin Kenny Larkin and Air's new Talkie Walkie might disarm the patient, as well as the beatific harp action of Alice Coltrane's Journey in Satchidananda. To address the aversion to the blues and hip hop: Fool Me Good by Georgia's Precious Bryant and The Roots's ground-breaking Things Fall Apart. Finally, The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place by Texan quartet Explosions in the Sky - if only to show that someone else loves Mogwai as much as Ian Rankin does.

The cure
Two weeks later and an enthused Ian Rankin wants to revise his opinion of Damon Albarn. 'I had always hated the idea of that guy toying with world music, but he's made a great record there. Terry Hall & Mushtaq was another revelation.

'Charlotte Greig and Wigwam have also yielded repeat listens - as did Precious Bryant. Of Explosions in the Sky, he says, 'I'm amazed that Mogwai don't sue, but that doesn't matter.' Kenny Larkin and Air were also well received but, alas, Alice Coltrane was 'a bit much' and The Roots left him cold. And Christopher O'Riley? 'Um, no. But a commendable try.'