Ned Russin didn’t take the decision to venture out on his own and start the band Glitterer lightly. “Even though [Glitterer] started as a pretty pared-down aesthetic compared to other things I’d done in the past, it still felt like a big leap,” he said. Up until that point in 2017, Russin had mostly made music collaboratively in the punk band Title Fight (alongside his twin brother Ben Russin).
“It was something I wanted to prove to myself,” Russin said in a phone interview with The Post. “That I could write a song worth listening to.”
Once Glitterer’s self-titled EP came out in 2017, it was clear that Russin could write songs that weren’t just worth listening to but were worth ruminating over, too. The album’s intimate, lo-fi production coupled with his pointed lyrical style made it sound like Russin was ruminating, too. He made the album while he was attending Columbia University in New York, and you can hear that college-student brand of existential dread that still glistens with hope in the music. On “A Little Song,” he sings, “Life goes on 80-some years long/ There’s time to get it right, time to get it wrong,” his voice echoing against a somber bass. On the one hand he’s anticipating life’s end; on the other he’s optimistic it’ll last long enough to right the wrongs.
Glitterer stayed a one-man band for a few more years. Russin’s insular production expanded — growing to incorporate more live musicians in the studio. But after making the 2021 album “Life Is Not a Lesson” in the lonely throes of a pandemic, Russin was ready to return to the way he had always made music: with other people. He enjoyed the challenge, or the “impossible project” as he calls it, of making songs in isolation but felt, in some ways, trapped by what he was trying to document. “I realized trying to do this thing about how people are lonely, selfish and too self-important, I then assumed the position of someone who was lonely, selfish and too self-important,” Russin said.
Russin moved to D.C. in 2019 and recruited from the community of DMV-based musicians to join him, ending up with Nicole Dao (keyboard), Jonas Farah (drums) and Mike French (guitar). They have found a groove that works, a chemistry made evident on their first joint project. Released in February, “Rationale” is bombastic but still tender. The lead single, “Plastic,” features an irresistibly melodic guitar riff and Russin’s signature biting lyrics. “Anything that’s everything/ Ends up in landfills over time,” he sings as the drums race ahead to catch a sparkly synth in the chorus.
The song “I Want to Be Invisible” is a rousing album opener; it starts with a slow-moving synth and builds to Russin’s combative vocals. “Because I want to be invisible,” he sings in the chorus. He quickly corrects himself, “But I can’t stay that way forever.” He pulls himself, just as he pulled Glitterer, out of solitude right before our eyes. March 30 at 8 p.m. at Songbyrd, 540 Penn St. NE. songbyrddc.com. $20-$22.
