Glitterer

Kingston, then quiet

Ned Russin spent his twenties in Title Fight, the band he formed in 2003 in Kingston, Pennsylvania, with his twin brother Ben on drums, Jamie Rhoden on guitar and vocals, and Shane Moran added on guitar in 2005. That group moved from pop-punk through melodic hardcore and into something closer to shoegaze across three albums: 'Shed' in 2011 and 'Floral Green' in 2012 on SideOneDummy, then 'Hyperview' in 2015 on ANTI-. They played a benefit show in New York in early 2018 and then stopped, without ever using the word. Russin has been careful about this ever since: the band has never said hiatus and never said broken up.

Glitterer arrived in 2017, in the gap. It was Russin alone, working out of Washington, D.C., and the first releases were deliberately small: a self-titled EP on 8 August 2017 and 'Not Glitterer' on 20 April 2018, both self-released, both short bursts of bass, drum machine and synthesiser where a guitar band would have been. The foundation of his musical understanding, he has said, runs through punk and hardcore, but the reference points he reaches for when talking about Glitterer are Guided by Voices and Sneaks.

Three records on ANTI-

ANTI- picked the project up for 'Looking Through the Shades', released 12 July 2019, and kept it for 'Life Is Not a Lesson' on 26 February 2021 and the 'Fantasy Four' EP on 30 September 2022. Arthur Rizk has engineered every Glitterer release since 2019, a continuity that matters more than it sounds: Russin credits him with making the records cohere as a body of work while leaving each one distinct, and the two have been friends for about a decade.

'Rationale', released 23 February 2024 on ANTI-, was the turn. It was the first Glitterer album made as a group rather than by one person, with Nicole Dao on keyboards, and it was received as the record that justified the expansion. Stereogum made it Album Of The Week on 20 February 2024 in a review by Danielle Chelosky and later placed it 43rd on a mid-year list, praising lyricism wrapped in colourful guitars and fluttering synthesisers. New Noise gave it four out of five. Spin wrote that it sounded as though it could have been made in 1994 or 2024. Russin was blunt about the process afterwards: there had been a weird internal debate during the making about whether he actually liked the music, and it was playing the songs live that made them make complete sense. The synth, he explained, functions as a second guitar rather than a wash over the top.

'erer', and owning the master

The fourth album, 'erer', came out on 21 November 2025 — not on ANTI- but on Purple Circle Records, the label Russin co-owns and which had put out the 'Not Glitterer' compilation back in 2019. It runs ten tracks, produced by Rizk, with the lineup now settled as Russin on bass and vocals, Dao on keys, Colin Gorman on guitar and Robin Zeijlon on drums. The lead single was 'Stainless Steel'.

Russin has been candid about what self-releasing costs him in comfort. Running the label lets the band fully control the narrative instead of leaning on manufactured storylines, but every small failure feels much heavier, and it is now completely his fault. The songs themselves move outward from the interior focus of the earlier records: 'erer' takes aim at individualism and a sense of Western entitlement, at cycles of wanting, and at the futility attached to both. Alongside that he describes a philosophical shift from chasing permanence to accepting impermanence, which freed him from needing the art to last forever.

It is also, as a piece of trivia he has enjoyed pointing out, the first fourth album by any band he has been in — Title Fight included. Reviews were strong. Tinnitist called it the most thematically urgent work the band has produced and the most immediately and sustainedly ear-pleasing, describing post-hardcore-influenced power pop with Albini-ish production, massive stereo guitars and layered keyboards under melodies that twist unpredictably, and singling out 'Until' and 'Not Forever'. The band marked the release at home with a free all-ages show and record signing at the Gallery of Sound in Wilkes-Barre Township on 20 November 2025, the night before the album landed.

A year of touring, February to September 2026

The 'erer' campaign put Glitterer on the road more or less continuously through 2026. It opened with Run For Cover's Something in the Way festival in Boston on 31 January and 1 February, then a headline run with Graham Hunt and Prize Horse opening — small rooms by design, Cobra Cabana in Richmond on 4 February, Kings in Raleigh on the 5th, the Masquerade's Purgatory room in Atlanta on the 6th, American Legion Post 8 in Las Vegas on the 18th, the Holland Project in Reno on the 19th, Cafe Colonial in Sacramento on the 20th, Cafe du Nord in San Francisco on the 21st, Black Lodge in Seattle on the 23rd, Polaris Hall in Portland on the 24th. March moved east and bigger: Toscadura in Montreal on the 9th, Bowery Ballroom in New York on the 11th, Philadelphia's First Unitarian Church on the 12th, Ottobar in Baltimore on the 13th. Advance tickets for the headline leg had gone on sale on 17 October 2025.

Then the step up. Glitterer played the Sonora stage at Coachella across both weekends, on 12 and 19 April 2026 — a long way from a drum machine and a bass in 2017. A second, looser stretch of dates followed through the summer and early autumn, largely festivals, outdoor shows and support slots: Kirby Park in Wilkes-Barre on 19 August, Bearsville Theater in Woodstock on 20 August on a bill with Joyce Manor, The Sinclair in Cambridge on 9 September, Spruce Street Harbor Park in Philadelphia on 10 September, Conduit in Winter Park, Florida on 15 September, Workplay in Birmingham on 20 September, and the National Sylvan Theater in Washington, D.C. on 26 September, the most recent documented performance. Nothing is currently on sale.

What the set looks like

The headline show and the festival show are two different animals, and the setlists make that obvious. On the February–March run the band played long and drew from everywhere; the summer and autumn dates, mostly support and festival slots, cut the same material down to around thirteen songs and in one case a single-song appearance.

Across the 2026 run Glitterer have played 26 different songs, which for a band with four albums and three EPs is close to everything that works in a room. 'Are You Sure?', 'Bodies', 'Stainless Steel' and 'The Race' have been the fixtures.