Through the exhaustion, it persists. Gnaw’s glowing power-pop draws deep from a tired tension: a perpetually shifting negotiation between ‘90s alt-rock romanticism, fuzzed out upon machine-gun drumming; pummeling riffs mangled through digital processing and noise; tales traversing lingering memory and motion, mesmerized by hypergaze-influenced joy rushes. Brandishing a heavy palette of power pop immediacy — equally indebted to indie rock contemporaries like Momma and Slow Pulp and ‘90s grit a la Hole and Smashing Pumpkins — the EP’s four serrated songs thrill through life’s pushes and pulls.
On their debut EP, Inside a Machine That’s Glistening, the three-piece draws from that weighty palette to weave four songs that glow amidst the grit. There’s a curious, yet never overbearing darkness to them: confessionals channeled through Daniel Lim’s serrated guitar work, dancing between Tara Tan’s cautious, whispery vocals. Navigating a spectrum from sheer wonder (“Star”) to fear (“Gash”) and fatigue (“This Is My Life”), Tan’s personal stories shift from dreamy to dramatic. Meanwhile, drummer Zakhran Khan’s fine-tuned rhythms rip into these sincere questions, at times accelerating to torrents of catharsis, while at others simply adding to moments triumphant.
Mood Board is our column where artists share a few of the things that inspired their new record. This time, guitarist Daniel Lim, vocalist Tara Tan, and drummer Zakhran Khan of the Singapore band Gnaw tell us how rust, abandonment, Tetsuya Nakashima, and more inspired their debut EP Inside a Machine That’s Glistening — out now.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music
1. Confessions (2010) by Tetsuya Nakashima
Confessions was a major influence on the EP. The film is a psychological revenge drama about a teacher grappling with the murder of her young daughter as she carries out a calculated revenge plan against the students responsible.
It explores cruelty, revenge, and closure with a kind of visual elegance and restraint that I found deeply compelling. Seeing such difficult emotions rendered so thoughtfully inspired the overall sound and tone of the EP.
— Daniel Lim (guitar)
2. Disuse and abandonment
I’ve been thinking a lot about my relationship with objects, how they evolve once we stop using them, and what kind of stories they carry after they’ve been abandoned. The immediate spark for this idea actually came from seeing soft toys left behind, dirty and forgotten, and imagining the life they once had. There’s something fascinating about revisiting items that I once relied on, that I once found meaningful, and placing them back at the center of attention. That tension between usefulness and obsolescence, between care and neglect, felt really inspiring to me.
I was drawn to the grit, the imperfections, and the sense of having been worn or used, a kind of history embedded in the sound itself. It’s about embracing the marks left behind, the textures that come from life and experience, and letting that shape the tone, the structure, and the emotional core of the songs.
— Daniel
3. Vaughan Oliver’s record covers
I was quite inspired by the works of Vaughan Oliver — especially the way his visuals feel quite layered, surreal, and emotionally charged without being too literal. A lot of his more iconic covers feel almost like collages of texture and mood. Covers like Treasure or Heaven or Las Vegas have this soft, dreamlike depth, everything feels slightly diffused but still really intentional. When I was writing the songs, reflecting back, I subconsciously pictured some of his covers in mind as I wanted the music to channel a similar feeling sonically.
— Tara Tan (vocals)
4. Rust
I kept coming back to the image of rust — something slowly weathering over time. I was drawn to the feeling of something gnawing at the back of your mind. I think that sense of wear and agedness seeped into the lyrical content of the EP. Some thoughts never fully resolve but they just kind of linger on and leave a mark.
— Tara
5. Water and geometry
I’ve always been drawn to water and it is my constant reminder to be flexible and stay present. I love how ripples and waves can look less like water and more like a glitchy piece of math. My drumming follows the “math” of the song — bending and flowing to fill the gaps in hopes of ensuring that it serves the music.
— Zakhran Khan (drums)
