Personal Trainer share new single and video "Cyan" from upcoming album "Still Willing" out 2nd August via Bella Union || New live dates added including London EartH show in 2025!

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” which comes accompanied by a striking animated video directed by Louis Cooper. Click HERE to watch.

Commenting on the track frontman Willem Smit says: “I had been working on this one for a while and when I needed words, this song automatically turned into a love song, because I’d recently fallen for someone. It felt a little strange to just openly declare my love with this song, knowing it was going to end up on the record. But I was happy with how it turned out and asked my friend Lena Hessels to sing some parts on it. Lena is a rising alternative pop star and she has a great voice. For Cyan she intuitively changed the rhythm of the chorus ever so slightly, which made it bounce a bit more I took away a lot of my own vocals and replaced them with hers, because I think the song works very well with her voice.”

Commenting on the video Louis Cooper says: “I couldn't think of anything better than unusual figures dancing, done in crude and awkward animation. The video was an attempt to make less of a visual collage and more of something that vaguely resembles the vintage charm of Captain Pugwash and Mr Ben. Most of my projects are influenced by the works of Jim Blashfield and Michael Gondry. They’ve developed so many creative methods and ideas, making it easy to be inspired.”

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. All upcoming tour dates are listed below.

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.

Witty, welcoming and winningly melodic, Still Willing is the sound of an instinctive DIY-pop musician favouring think-on-your-feet exploration and intuition over know-it-all premeditation. Willem’s initial intent was to record the album as if live, but he realised that his chemistry with Casper would not be denied. “I felt that we had grown and built a language together. We don’t have to say a lot, but we understand each other well. There was a lot less like trying out stuff and taking stuff away compared to the last one, because it felt like we were on the same wavelength.”

Recorded between home and – says Willem – “places that don’t cost much to record at”, the result is a DIY pop album brimming with ideas and colour. Alongside Lena Hessels and The Klittens, contributors include drummer Kick Kluiving and (for half of the songs) bassist Ruben van Weegberg, also Willem’s bandmate in the band Canshaker Pi, who numbered Stephen Malkmus among their producers.

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.”

“Big Love Blanket” harnessed that energy in 10 excitable pop songs, bright and bracing. Acclaim from Steve Lamacq, Marc Riley, MOJO, Clash, DIY and others followed. Support slots with BC Camplight in 2023 were joyfully received, as was a tour for Independent Venues Week. Personal Trainer have notched up many festival visits, too, including stop-offs at the End of the Road, Wilderness and The Great Escape. Soon, Smit and his bandmates will showcase that form with summer festivals including Green Man, Deershed, Truck Festival and Lowlands. 

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.

Personal Trainer Tour Dates:

(new shows in bold)

Thu. Jul. 25 - Tunbridge-Wells, UK @ Unstead Festival

Sat. Jul. 27 - Thirsk, UK @ Deer Shed Festival

Sun. Jul. 28 - Oxfordshire, UK @ Truck Festival

Thurs. Aug. 1 – London, UK @ Shacklewell Arms

Fri. Aug. 2 - London, UK @ Rough Trade East (In-Store)

Sat. Aug. 3 - Portsmouth, UK @ Pie & Vinyl (In-Store)

Sat. Aug. 3 - Brighton, UK @ Resident (In-Store)

Sun. Aug. 4 - Totnes, UK @ Drift (In-Store)

Mon. Aug. 5 - Bristol, UK @ Rough Trade (In-Store)

Tue. Aug. 6 - Liverpool, UK @ Rough Trade (In-Store)

Wed. Aug. 7 - Leeds, UK @ Jumbo (In-Store)

Wed. Aug 7 - Nottingham, UK @ Rough Trade Nottingham (In-Store)

Thu. Aug. 8 - London, UK @ Banquet (In-Store)

Sat. Aug. 10 - Lierop, NL @ Nirwana Tuinfeesten

Fri. Aug. 16 - Crickhowell, UK Green Man Festival

Sat. Aug. 17 - Biddinghuizen, NL @ Lowlands

Sun. Aug. 25 - Portsmouth, UK @  Victorious Festival

Sat. Sept. 14 - Bergen Op Zoom, NL @ Popmonument

Sat. Sept. 28 - Antwerp, BE @ Thorn in my side

Sat. Oct. 5 - Eindhoven, NL @ Come as you are

Tue. Oct. 29 - Zurich, CH @ Dynamo Werk21

Thu. Oct. 31 - Milan, IT @ Arci Bellezza

Fri. Nov. 1 - Bologna, IT @ Covo

Mon. Nov. 4 - Anger, FR @ Jokers Pub

Tue. Nov. 5 - Laval, FR @ La Fosse

Wed. Nov. 6 - Paris, FR @ Point Éphémère

Fri. Nov. 11 - Reykjavik, IS @ Iceland Airwaves

Tue. Nov. 12 - Schorndorf, DE @ Manufaktur

Thu. Nov. 14 - Vienna, AT @ Chelsea

Fri. Nov. 15 - Warsaw, PL @ Bardzo Bardzo

Fri. Nov. 16 - Berlin, DE @ Shokoladen

Tue. Nov. 19 - Copenhagen, DK @ Loppen

Wed. Nov. 20 - Hamburg, DE @ Aalhus

Fri. Nov. 22 - Groningen, NL @ VERA

Thu. Nov. 28 - Zwolle, NL @ Hedon

Sat. Nov. 30 - Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso Grote Zaal

Sun. Dec. 1 - Rotterdam, NL @ Maasilo

Thu. Dec. 5 - Tilburg, NL @ 013 NEXT

Wed. Jan. 29, 2025 - Madrid, ES @ Siroco

Fri. Jan. 31, 2025 - Barcelona, ES @ Razzamatazz 3

Thu. Feb. 6, 2025 - Ghent, BE @ Wintercircus

Fri. Feb. 14, 2025 - Manchester, UK @ Gorilla

Sat. Feb. 15, 2025 - Newcastle, UK @ The Grove

Sun. Feb. 16, 2025 - Edinburgh, UK @ Mash House

Tue. Feb. 18, 2025 - Glasgow, UK @ Room 2

Wed. Feb. 19, 2025 - Belfast, UK @ Ulster Sports Club

Sat. Feb. 22, 2025 - Liverpool, UK @ District

Sun. Feb. 23, 2025 - Birmingham, UK @ Castle & Falcon

Mon. Feb. 24, 2025 - Bristol, UK @ Thekla

Wed. Feb. 26, 2025 - London, UK @ EartH 

Thu. Feb. 27, 2025 - Portsmouth, UK @ Wedgewood Rooms

Fri. Feb. 28, 2025 - Oxford, UK @ Academy 2

Sat. Mar. 1, 2025 - Brighton, UK @ Chalk

Wed. May 7, 2025 - Opwijk, BE @ Nijdrop

Still Willing album artwork below: