Seat At The Table; Episode Seven with Pebbledash

In their latest single Asha’s Waltz, Pebbledash take a bold, intimate turn that feels both like a homecoming and a quiet reinvention. Following the acclaimed debut EP Four Portraits of the Same Ugly House, the Cork-based outfit return with a track that trades their trademark sonic density for something more stripped-back but no less affecting. With roots in vocalist Asha’s solo songwriting, Asha’s Waltz drifts through dislocation and familial tension, weaving folk textures and shoegaze haze into a piece that feels both deeply personal and mythic. I spoke with the band about the story behind the single, their evolving sound, and how Cork—its streets, carparks, and coastal margins—continues to shape the emotional landscapes they explore.

Asha’s Waltz feels like a pivotal release following your debut EP—can you tell us what inspired this track and what 'Asha' represents to the band?

Asha’s Waltz is a song about place and memory. Asha (lead vocals) wrote it at a time when she was feeling alienated by the landscapes of the city and small town that she was living in; it's also about navigating landscapes of memory and exploring complicated family relationships and the strain that can come with growth in those relationships. The song is of immense personal significance to Asha, and she performed it live in her solo capacity before joining Pebbledash for many years; the title ‘Asha’s Waltz’ was only really settled on shortly prior to recording the song, as we had previously just referred to the track as ‘the Waltz’; it was a bit of a serendipitous naming choice though, as it rather mirrors the naming conventions of some Irish traditional songs.

Your music often fuses traditional Irish elements with shoegaze textures—how does Asha’s Waltz continue or evolve that sonic identity?

Although the guitar work in Asha’s Waltz at the height of their intensity does reach towards that overwhelming wall of sound that typifies shoegaze, the new track does lean far more towards the folr influences that also are common to several members of the band, especially as we made the decision to give such prominence to the acoustic guitar and the organ. It’s definitely not as direct a unifying of traditional music and shoegaze as maybe Carraig Aonair was intended to be, especially as it’s an original composition rather than a trad song, but the incorporation of those elements still remains.

The title evokes a kind of elegance or ritual—what mood or emotional journey were you hoping to create for the listener with this single?

Asha’s Waltz is deeply grounded in feelings of alienation, confusion and dislocation, of wandering through a landscape – and landscape of relationships - at once familiar and frightening; we tried to underscore that feeling of listlessness and strain through the arrangement, with the rather seasick, loping pace of the drums and bursts of guitar noise. Central to our rendering of Asha’s Waltz was maintaining a focus on the lyrics and the emotional journey that they take the listener on, with the core arrangement being far more grounded in acoustic instruments – the guitar and organ throughout the track, and to which the track returns after its climax. That sparseness, we hope, allows us to really clearly highlight the emotional weight of the song. Every song is a ritual, in its way, and we hope we’re able to conjure what we intend to.

Your debut EP was incredibly well received—did the response to Four Portraits of the Same Ugly House influence the creative direction of

Asha’s Waltz?

We were really delighted with the reception of Four Portraits, and those tracks mean a great deal to us; but in a way, Asha’s Waltz and the process of its recording feel quite at a remove from those songs, which we would have recorded early in 2024 and many of which were written quite a while beforehand. Although we were in a different headspace when recording Asha’s Waltz, however, the EP and its reception did I think instill in us a confidence in our ability to develop our sound out further and try a different approach, which Asha’s Waltz certainly constitutes.

Pebbledash has become known for intense live energy—how does Asha’s

Waltz translate from studio to stage? Is there anything you do differently

live?

The recording process certainly gave us an opportunity to take a different approach to Asha’s Waltz when compared to the way we’ve been playing it live, introducing the acoustic guitar that anchors the song and paring back the weight and ferocity of the guitar and synth lines to a degree. The track originated in Asha’s days a singer-songwriter, so recording it with the band saw the track coming home to those origins in some ways. Live, the instrumental sections tend toward a greater intensity, letting loose more with feedback and distorted synth lines, and we’ve also yet to play the track live with the addition of acoustic guitar (although we wouldn’t rule that out), which certainly leads to our live renditions of Asha’s Waltz having quite a coarse, harsh texture.

Several major voices in UK and Irish music—Radio X, BBC 6, Hot Press—have described your sound as “otherworldly” and “epic.” Do you

feel any pressure living up to those expectations with each new release?

The reception of Four Portraits of the Same Ugly House has been absolutely amazing for us to see, both in Ireland and the UK. As we mention earlier, the process of recording the EP itself seems quite far away to us in a strange way, although those tracks are the most recent releases up to now; so while the reception to those songs is definitely something that we’ve discussed a lot recently and is absolutely something that we’ve taken into consideration in deciding practical elements of releasing Asha’s Waltz, we think Four Portraits and the really wonderful reception it’s received as less of a source of pressure and more a milestone to be proud of and a benchmark to surpass.

Could you talk a bit about your recording process for Asha’s Waltz—was there anything experimental or unusual in how you approached it?

We recorded Asha’s Waltz with Andy Killian, with whom we also worked on our double

single from last summer, Killer Lover/Carraig Aonair. For those singles, we recorded in an unconventional environment, that being Crowley’s Music Centre in Cork, and for Asha’s Waltz, we recorded in Andy’s home. ‘Experimental’ might not be the word exactly, but it was certainly unconventional when one compares it to the experience of recording in a studio environment; we recorded drums in Andy’s living room, took them down, and then recorded guitars and then vocals in that same room. It was quite wonderfully informal, and contributed a great deal to our comfort with paring the arrangement of the track back. Andy is a great contributor in terms of ideas for unusual textures and additions to an arrangement, and one such idea involved making use of a Count to Five pedal to sample and mangle some of the instrumental tracks we laid down and particular junctures of the track. For the keys part, particularly coming to the fore in the outro, we also made use of an old organ from antique shop in Cork, which produces a really wonderful and evocative sound undergirding the track.

The single arrives just ahead of your second headline tour, Of Seaweed and Sandtone. How does this track fit into the narrative or atmosphere of that upcoming tour?

In considering how we wanted to present our tour – from the name ‘Of Seaweed and Sandstone’ to the textures and images presented on our tour posters – the contrast between urban and natural environments and the symbols accompanying these environments were at the forefront of our mind. Asha’s Waltz and its lyrics certainly are of a piece with those juxtapositions and those images, from the narrative’s very overt grounding in the landscape of the urban environments and Cork – the red cross over the city, the church carpark – with the ‘sound of the waves / pulling up stones’, lyrics delivered at such a texturally pivotal moment in the track. The content of the song, as such, fits into and we hope, serves to set a tone for the atmosphere of the tour as such.

With each release, you seem to be building your own mythos—do you see Asha’s Waltz as part of a larger story or concept within your body of work?

Yes, and no; in one sense, ‘Asha’s Waltz’ stands alone as a deeply personal narrative and a song that, although vigorously developed by all of us within the band, Asha herself wrote and performed separately for a long time. But there are absolutely through-lines to the rest of our music; the spaces and landscapes of Cork and the imagery in the song are the same spaces that a track like Soak or Killer Lover inhabits. Sonically, as well, we think the song does definitely fit into the conceptual direction that our writing has moved towards recently, which tends towards a more pared-back approach.

Finally, what do you hope a first-time listener takes away from Asha’s Waltz? Is there a particular feeling or image you’d like to leave lingering in their minds?

The images we hope stick with the listener - the red cross hanging over the city, the lonely dance in the church carpark – are those of the surreal Cork City that Asha attempts to conjure throughout the track; although it presents a strange, distorted lens, the imagery of Cork in Asha’s Waltz has a lot of bleak beauty to it as well. We always try and get a bit sad in rehearsal before we play through Asha’s Waltz. We hope the listener gets a bit sad. And thinks of Cork. In a good way.

Asha’s Waltz shows a quieter, more personal side of Pebbledash, but it still carries the weight and emotion the band is known for. It’s a song that stays with you—full of vivid images, raw feeling, and a deep sense of place. As they head into their Of Seaweed and Sandstone tour, Pebbledash continue to grow their sound while staying true to the stories and landscapes that shape their music.

Upcoming Dates for Pebbledash

31.05.25- River Runs Round + Cork Harbour Festival, Cork

14.06.25- Beyond The Pale Festival, Wicklow

04.07.25- The Shacklewell Arms, London

06.11.25- Cyprus Avenue, Cork

07.11.25- Workman's Club, Dublin

08.11.25- Voodoo, Belfast

12.11.25- Servant’s Jazz Quarters, London

15.11.25- Castle Hotel, Manchester

16.11.25- The Attic, Leeds