Ned Russin on the new Glitterer album ‘Rationale’
At this point, Ned Russin has nothing to prove. After establishing himself as the frontman of the widely influential, boundary-pushing hardcore outfit Title Fight, Russin has been working under the Glitterer moniker since 2017. A confluence of his punk background with the melodic inflexions of extra-genre sources, his short, hooky songs weaponising simple but potent synth lines stood the project out from the immediate crowd. Now, with two accomplished albums and an EP, things have taken another step forward with the latest studio-length release, Rationale.
On the new record, the distinctive Glitterer formula remains. Still, it has been pushed in new directions by adding a band, who have made the project a collaborative and, resultantly, more expansive undertaking. With keyboardist Nicole Dao, drummer Jonas Farah, and guitarist Mike French making their mark on proceedings, with Connor Morin also providing guitar, things have been levelled up. This allowed Russin to enjoy being in a group again and further augmented the power of his vocal and bass performances. Perhaps more importantly, the members’ presence reaffirmed the project’s context.
I linked up with Russin via Zoom. He was sat in the van as the rest of the band grabbed vital vats of coffee. It’s a place he will spend much of his time this month, as the group are currently on the road supporting Foxing and The Hotelier on their joint tenth-anniversary tour. This run will prepare them for a string of headline dates in March, culminating with the Rationale release show at Songbyrd Music House in DC.
Despite being happy with the final product, Russin endured a wobble during the creative process. Rationale shaped up with ease and sounded cohesive in the early stages, right before the band entered the studio with Arthur Rizk, a “weird internal debate” arose for the Glitterer leader. He just didn’t know if he liked the music.
Melodies and a major key are something bands will always bring to solo efforts, and for an artist as mercurial as Russin, such a development was worrying. Like all good punk musicians, the group’s output only really began to “make complete sense” when they hit the stage. Thankfully, now, he’s “happy for everybody to hear it”. The discomfort it took to get there made Russin more conscientious, “that kind of doubt made me make sure everything was as perfect as it could be”.
The new members might have seen the complexion of Glitterer’s music change, but the creative process has stayed the same. “It’s always starting with a little kernel, whether it be a riff, a chord change, or a vocal idea, and then building off that and trying to have the logical conclusion of that idea. Any single note or chord can only go so many other places. That’s just the written rules of music,” Russin maintains.
He continues: “In order for it to sound pleasing to the ear, you can only go to so many places. So it’s finding the places it can go that make the most sense and feel right. Only it was done with three other people this time.” But for an artist as experienced as Russin, the addition of views was no real trouble, “It was just learning everybody’s sensibilities.”
In truth, the chance to work within a band opened Russin to other possibilities when creating the new album and allowed him to dive deeply into what he deems essential in sonic creation. “To me, collaborating in a group is the most important part of creating music,” he says. “It was a welcome change, to be honest. It felt familiar, but at the same time new.”
One area of newness is the group’s effervescent synth lines. Previously under Russin’s complete control, the duties are now shared with Dao, but the ethos remains the same: “The philosophy we have with the band is the keys are acting as a second guitar; we only have one guitarist in the band.” When there’s space for the keys to write a riff, they do, keeping it simple and not getting in the way of the vocal melody or other layers.
Like most of the group’s most vital work, these lines were created without any preconceived process and occurred with Russin using a version of Ableton Lite with a MIDI controller and “fucking around”. The more synth melodies he wrote, the more they became vital to Glitterer. Now, it’s not something the band even thinks about when jamming together. Dao comes up with an idea, plays it, and the process evolves once more.
Within Glitterer it is easy to see how Russin may cite bands such as Guided by Voices, a group known for their snappy songs, and Baltimore outfit Sneaks, who had one unspecified tape on Sister Polygon he loved because of its short tracks and simple composition of bass, drum machine and vocals, as pivotal in the group’s direction. When making this new record, he “also realised that the foundation of a lot of my musical understanding is through punk and hardcore”.
He explained: “While I was going through these melodic examples of bands that were doing short songs, and getting to a cool chorus really quick and then throwing it all away, I also realised that the stuff that I grew up listening to — and that I learned how to play my instrument — on were one minute and 15-second songs that were super fast, got to the point, and then they were done. It was the same idea. I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is the best way I know how to play music.'”
Of course, the project has grown since then by writing more songs and “moved on” with more influences. However, inherent to being in Glitterer is reconciling the punk mentality without feeling creatively impotent by time restrictions or motifs. Russin asserts: “It’s a minute and 15 seconds because we put all the parts in it that we wanted, and we don’t need to do anything else.”
The theme of rebuilding ideas and institutions is emphasised throughout Rationale due to the influence of Martin Riker’s most recent novel, The Guest Lecture. “The rebuilding of things is not our idea at all, we’re just stealing this from other people. But it’s an idea that I subscribe to that, ideally, takes on everything. The societal institutions, big and small, as well as the internal mental institutions that we have,” Russin clarifies before describing the last thing of utmost significance to the Glitterer operation: the circumstances that surround them. Their blurred sonic lines are done so with intent and social antagonism.
“The thing that’s important for us is our context.” Here is the beating heart of a punk band threatening to tug on their heartstrings and dive headfirst into synth-driven melody. For Russin, that’s as defiant as it gets. “We come from hardcore scenes; the shows that we go to when we’re home are DC hardcore shows, mostly. The shows I grew up going to were Wilkes-Barre hardcore shows,” the Glitterer leader explains.
“The context of doing that thing with our little pithy, melodic keyboard songs is the kind of angsty fist-shaking that I think we’re doing,” he proudly states. “Our context is coming from the punk scene. And so it’s supposed to be inherently antagonistic, even though it’s these very palatable, quick, easy songs.”
