Dutch collective Personal Trainer release their anticipated new album ‘Still Willing’ on 2nd August via Bella Union. Following the singles ‘Intangible’ and ‘Round’, today the band shared their new single and LP highlight ‘Cyan’. Additionally, Personal Trainer have announced new UK and European live shows for 2025 to add to their already busy touring schedule. The newly announced dates including the band’s biggest London headline show to date at EartH in February 2025.
If you like pop music to keep you on your toes, Amsterdam’s Personal Trainer provide that service fulsomely on their superb second album. Essentially the project of Willem Smit (working with co-producer / collaborator Casper van der Lans) on record and a live band, Personal Trainer showed a facility for DIY indie-pop exuberance and experimentation in sync with 2022’s debut, ‘Big Love Blanket’. Now signed to Bella Union, Willem returns re-energised with ‘Still Willing’, a multi-faceted album of shining contrasts and spry melodies, effusive arrangements and subliminal sounds, playful lyrics and self-reflection: in short, a pop album executed with dynamism, vim and charm.
Willem is the epicentre of the band, which originated from impromptu and exhilarating live shows featuring ever-shifting members of different local bands sharing a bustling stage. The live line-up has solidified somewhat but Willem still welcomes the contrast with his recorded work: “When I make the record, it’s me calling the shots. But I can’t tell everyone exactly what to do every second when we’re on stage. There’s, like, shakers flying around or instruments being thrown all over the place, so I don’t have the capacity to control that. And that’s really exciting to me.”
Meanwhile, ‘Still Willing’ arrives as a fervid expression of Willem’s home-recording and studio methods, tethered to inviting pop instincts and rich with the fertile promise of more to come. Willem doesn’t want to tell you what or how to think about the album but, he says, “It would be awesome if people like it and buy the record, so that I can make another one.”
‘Still Willing’ tracklisting:
‘Upper Ferntree Gully’
‘I Can Be Your Personal Trainer’
‘Cyan’
‘Round’
‘New Bad Feeling’
‘Intangible’
‘Testing The Alarm’
‘Still Willing’
‘You Better Start Scrubbing’
‘What Am I Supposed To Say About The People And Their Ways’
On the strength of ‘Still Willing’, he’s fit for the long distance. Pre-order your copy HERE or should you wish, you can order your copy from Resident music in Kensington Gardens and see them play instore on Saturday 3rd August – Details on that and other instore events can be found HERE.
However, if you crave a full live set from Personal Trainer at a concert venue, then local music promoter Love Thy Neighbour have secured a date with the band here in Brighton. This will be 1st March 2025 and this will be happening at Chalk in Pool Valley. Tickets for this new concert will go on sale tomorrow, Friday 12th July, and can be purchased HERE and HERE.
Find out more about Personal Trainer HERE.
