Horse was born in Newport on Tay, Fife on Saint Cecelia’s Day (the saint of music) and lived in the village of Anstruther. After two years the family moved to the town of Lanark where she spent her formative years. Singing and writing from an early age, Horse got her first guitar on her 10th birthday. This is when ambition began in earnest. Escape could at least become plausible, albeit mental rather than physical.

In her school years Horse was seen as 'eccentric' and a bit of an entertainer. She made various appearances in school concerts, and parallel with this she would draw and paint. She was determined to go to art school and set about preparing her portfolio. During this time she teamed up with fellow ‘eccentric', Sandy Ash and they worked out a short but unlikely set of covers, including songs by Roxy Music, Sebastian and Steve Harley. Before long Sandy placed an ad in the NME, looking for other musicians.

Step forward Angela McAlinden!

Initially, however, there was more conversation than rehearsal and Sandy fell away quickly. Despite this, both Angela and Horse had some songs on which they tentatively began to collaborate (Gibson St, Cinema Love Scenes), beginning a writing partnership that was to last for 19 years. The duo chose Rhesus Negative as their first moniker, and were eventually joined by bass and drums, but this grouping fell away too.

Astrakhan was the name that followed, and with it a new batch of songs. One of those songs, '...And She Smiled' is a true survivor, making it's way onto the first album. It was also the track that landed a place on the Melody Maker's Playback album, after being selected by Alan Jones (editor, UNCUT magazine).

It wasn’t until the next demo, featuring ‘You Could Be Forgiven’, that publishers began to take note. The demo was singled out by Alex Radvanyi of CBS songs (now EMI), and eventually through a series of meetings and negotiations a deal was signed in 1986. It was at this point after various line-up changes that Graham Brierton, formerly of Sunset Gun, joined the group on bass.

In February 1987 a friend sent a demo to the main researcher from The TUBE. This was after Angela suggested that the band rename themselves Horse. One evening the call came to ask if they would be interested in appearing on the show, and within a week the appearance was scheduled for March.

It wasn’t until Autumn, however, that their hard work was rewarded. Simon Potts (MD of then fledgling label Capitol UK) confirmed his intention to travel to the Third Eye show in Glasgow, coming backstage after the show to note his interest. Several weeks later a further gig was organised, and after the usual drawn out legal discussions a contract was eventually agreed and the deal was signed December 23, 1987.

This is when the true work began, writing, gathering and deciding on songs for the first album. The ongoing search for a producer had finally ended with Pete Smith (Sting, The Adventures, China Crisis, Squeeze). He was an exceptional engineer. It was at this point that George Hutchison, Allan Dumbreck and Tony Soave were asked work for the band.

‘Forgiven’ and ‘Sweet Thing’ were recorded at Wessex Studios as potential singles. Several guest session players featured on this session, including Molly Duncan (Average White Band) and Mel Collins (session for Rolling Stones) on sax, Neil Conti (Prefab Sprout) on drums and Dee Harris (Fashion) on Backing Vocals. Howard Greenhalgh was selected to make a video for Forgiven. It was shot in and around Soho and in a film studio.

Just as ‘Forgiven’ was being released, the band went to West Peckham in Kent where they routined the album for 2 weeks prior to recording. Horse had been having difficulties with her voice, having to force her voice to get the correct pitch.

Latterly it was discovered she had a node on her left vocal chord. This was devastating news - all the fears she had been harbouring were realised.

The band decided to continue recording the album whilst Horse had an operation which would keep her completely silent for 10 days, and without a singing voice for 2 months. She had the operation in London and returned to the recording studio with a note pad and pen! When the time came for Horse to try her voice again, the session took place in Utopia Studios in London. A couple of notes had disappeared at the bottom of her range but at least 4 or 5 appeared at the top!

Work had not begun on ‘Careful’, since Horse had not wanted a band version, so Pete had suggested strings. Horse turned to Audrey Riley for string arrangements, a collaborative partnership which continues to this day.

With the recording complete, the promotion and marketing began.

In between their own UK tours, the opportunity arose to support BB King, followed by Aztec Camera in Germany, culminating in audiences of up to 12,000 people - the biggest audiences the band had ever performed to - supporting Tina Turner throughout Germany and the UK (Wembley and NEC Birmingham). While ‘Sweet Thing’ was released in Germany, EMI Electrola wanted a six week promotional blast, the Americans summoned Horse to begin a promotional trip over there, and as everything began to snowball for Horse, the Gulf war happened.

Everything stopped. EMI froze and sat on the band. Simon Potts became Head of A+R worldwide and moved to LA, Horse couldn’t release anything and EMI wouldn’t release them from their contract. So the realisation that the remaining people at EMI did not want the band that Simon Potts had signed kicked in good and hard!

It was many months before the team settled down to writing and demoing again. Although they had management in Cavallo Ruffallo Fargnoli (representing Prince, Sinead O'Connor), Horse was not a priority. Eventually they began discussions with Mike Ede who had worked with Horse when he was with CRF, and was now involved with Oxygen - a subsidiary of MCA. They came to see the band at the Liquid Rooms in Edinburgh. After a great show, more negotiations and legal wrangling took place until a deal was hammered out.

Finding the producer for the next album was another long haul - for some reason Horse could never get the producer they wanted at the time. The label were keen to get underway, so the band met with Steve Jolley (Spandau Ballet and Imagination) amongst others, but couldn’t come to a decision. It was decided that ‘God’s Home Movie’ would be the first song to be recorded, and with no producer the band went to Angel Studios in Islington to record it live with 40 piece orchestra and Gail Anne Dorsey and Paul Lee on backing vocals. George presented ‘Shake This Mountain’ to be included, and the remainder was recorded between Fish's studio in Haddington and CAVA in Glasgow. Pete Smith came in and worked on several tracks and eventually it was recorded. Dave Bascombe mixed a couple of songs including the title track, and ‘God’s Home Movie’ was finally released.

MCA in America really took to Horse and they travelled throughout the country where they sang, chatted and appeared on radio stations and in magazines. However, Oxygen began to experience difficulties and folded - leaving Horse in no man's land again.

By the end of 1994 George had left the band. Horse and Angela worked as a duo and continued with several live dates, and collaborated on a couple of tracks. In ‘95 Horse planned and organised her solo Barrowlands show with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which took a lot of time and energy to carry off. Angela and Horse parted company in 1996.

It took some time to find a way forward. Horse was so used to being in a partnership, looking to the other for an opinion or corroboration, she had to discover what she wanted from the situation. So she set about putting a band together, and went through a series of musicians looking for the ones who fitted. She set about retracing steps to find the old fans and friends, and began the journey to setting up her own record label.

In the meantime, fans and friends were reporting hearing ‘Careful’ in clubs, but not the original. It transpired that the Stress label had licensed the song from EMI and wanted Horse to promote it. She loved the mixes by Sasha and Brothers in Rhythm, and so met the label chiefs but was disappointed with the offer of doing only a couple of singles beyond ‘Careful’. Regardless, she still promoted the song as much as she could. Sadly again it very narrowly missed out on the Top 40, a sad day.

By the beginning of ‘99 Randan Records was established. It struck Horse that the concert with the SCO was on a shelf in CAVA studios in Glasgow, and she set about releasing it. Meetings were arranged with the SCO and CAVA who both readily agreed to the project. Horse met with Tony Powell (MD of Pinnacle, the UK's biggest independent distributor), who liked the album and took the label on. ‘Both Sides’ received a good reception. The fans loved it, particularly the ones who went to the concert.

And so Horse began work on another studio album. 'Hindsight...It's a Wonderful Thing' was the album that not only Horse had been wanting to make but also the one that fans had long been waiting for. An e-mail received suggesting the funding of this new project by fans - at least in part - came in. This was not something that had ever been considered and the thought was a little embarrassing for Horse. However a message posted by a fan on the bulletin board got a such a massive response that it seemed like the right thing to do. In total, including several individual high payments, a total of £10,000 came in. An absolutely amazing response and a massive hand in the recording of ‘Hindsight...’.

‘Hindsight...’ was the pooling together of the best new songs from her collection. Gathering up unreleased, unrecorded and completely new songs, the making of 'Hindsight..' was both a joy and a trauma. The passion and feel poured into the album was all too real, and it has truly become quite autobiographical (‘Hindsight...It's a Wonderful Thing’, ‘Starfish’).

Horse is discovering some fairly avid fans who had not surprisingly lost track.

Her latest album Coming Up For Air, produced by Bob Sadler, is now complete and can be bought here. As Horse began to write the album, she suffered the loss of various family and friends. Her mother passed away first, followed very quickly by her dad. This of course devastated her but she found the writing cathartic and used it as a way of turning a terrible experience into something positive.

Some of the songs are of her experience through this sad time, her sense of loss and - in the case of her father - not being able to say goodbye. Not all of the tracks relate to loss however. Featured on the album are songs about jealousy, lust, hope and uplifting moments of fun.

And now, here is Horse finally kicking off the old and on with the new, with a brand new band and new tour dates in the new year, it’s there for all to see just how far she has travelled to get to this point. Onwards now...and upwards.