Guess You Got It

Listening to Guess You Got It, I hear hints of Patti Smith’s improvised poetry, the anguish of Portishead’s Beth Gibbons, the wild blues of Janis Joplin and the ferocity of Throwing Muses. Others will no doubt make their own comparisons. What should be clear to everyone, however, is that the album is built on human feelings rather than modern studio trickery. And that’s down primarily to Pina’s phenomenal singing.

“I couldn’t write songs that weren’t personal” she explains in an accent that has traces of both her Austrian upbringing and her rural Irish base. “But I don’t want to be seen as a singer-songwriter. I’m not just a woman with an acoustic guitar, and I don’t want to be seen as a folk artist. I’ve done gigs with folk singers and felt out of place. My songs are more rock than folk.”

Words by Adrian Thrills

Guess You Got It was originally released on the Real World imprint PRE Records, a label set-up to allow a different strand of music to sit alongside the Real World Records releases.

At the time Peter Gabriel said, “In starting PRE we get an opportunity to highlight some of the artists from our own musical world. I never really wanted to go outside Real World Records but one of the problems with the music business is it’s very hard to get stuff racked and firms are cutting space that would have gone to world music, and for some of the acts that are from a rock cultural heritage, they’ve always had a tough time being put in the world music section.”