Personal Trainer

Dutch collective Personal Trainer release their anticipated new album *Still

Willing* on 2nd August via Bella Union. Following the singes ‘Intangible’

and ‘Round’ today the band share 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 band live, Personal

Trainer showed a facility for DIY indie-pop exuberance and experiment 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.”* On the strength of *Still Willing*, he’s fit for the long distance.