• News

• All

May 22, 2024 By Mark Redfern Photography by Tom van Huisstede

Dutch band Personal Trainer have announced a new album, Still Waiting, and shared its lead single, “Round,” via a music video. Still Waiting is due out August 2 via Bella Union. Check out “Round” below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover artwork, as well as the band’s upcoming tour dates.

In the studio, Personal Trainer is mainly the project of frontman and bandleader Willem Smit, alongside co-producer/collaborator Casper van der Lans. But they fill out to a full band in a live setting. Still Waiting is the followup to their 2022 debut, Big Love Blanket. The album in includes the band’s previous single, “Intangible.”

Smit had this to say about the album in a press release: “When I listen to the records I make, the main thing I hope is that every time something happens on them, you’re like, ‘Wow.’ I like to be taken by surprise like that on a record, to kind of be thrown around.”

Of the new single, he adds: “‘Round’ was one of the last songs to make it onto the album. I had most of the record mapped out, but I felt it needed something that in The Netherlands I would call ‘een lekker nummertje,’ which I guess means something in-between ‘a banger’ or ‘a tasty little ditty.’ Or something. I tend to want one of those on records I make.”

Kilian Kayser directed the “Round” video and says: “The idea of making a video with an orange playing the role of Willem seemed fun. So we organized a last-minute show with an orange on lead vocals at the Helikopter in Amsterdam and spent a day wandering through the city to shoot the video. A major inspiration is the video for ‘Tom Courtenay’ by Yo La Tengo. I thought it would be a fun idea to end the clip with a live show. It’s my favorite typical music video trope. A sort of feel-good happy ending with a band making everything right for the protagonist on an uncomfortably small stage.”

Still Waiting Tracklist:

1. Upper Ferntree Gully
2. I Can Be Your Personal Trainer
3. Cyan
4. Round
5. New Bad Feeling
6. Intangible
7. Testing The Alarm
8. Still Willing
9. You Better Start Scrubbing
10. What Am I Supposed To Say About The People And Their Ways about

Personal Trainer Tour Dates:

Fri. Jul. 5 - Kraggenburg, NL @ Wilde Weide
Sat. Jul. 6 - Ameland, NL @ Madness Festival
Thu. Jul. 25 - Tunbridge-Wells, UK @ Unstead Festival
Sat. Jul. 27 - Thirsk, UK @ Deer Shed Festival
Sun. Jul. 28 - Oxfordshire, UK @ Truck Festival
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

Subscribe to Under the Radar’s print magazine.

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.