Personal Trainer photo by Sophie Koterus Korting
Personal Trainer has established a reputation as one of the best live bands around. Despite loving the band’s three albums, I had not been able to see them perform until their visit to the stalwart of Manchester’s gig itinerary, Band On The Wall. As I took up my vantage point on the venue’s small balcony area, I was eager to discover whether they would justify the enthusiastic reports.
First up though were support act, The Earwurms, who Personal Trainer brought over with them from the Netherlands. They announce themselves with stagey, theatrical crying before performing a bunch of songs whose main reference point would be a lineage of scratchy post-punk acts running through The Raincoats, Slits, Kleenex and Lung Leg. They offer short, sharp songs full of anti rockist riffs and changes of tempo. It is often easy to gauge a band’s priorities from their onstage requests to the sound person and the bassist asking for more high-end bass in the monitors felt revealing, set alongside the guitarist’s exploration of the low end of her instrument’s neck. Their half hour set climaxes with two songs that offer something a little different from their template. The penultimate tune is faster and poppier. The final track starts with a blast of harmonica from the drummer, features some a cappella three-piece harmonies as well as even more tempo changes. While they are viewed with the uncertainty that befalls unfamiliar support acts, they do enough to suggest they are worthy of further investigation.
Whereas The Earwurms are relatively static on stage the mood changes as soon as Personal Trainer’s walk-on music – Frank Sinatra’s ‘I Would Be In Love (Anyway)’ – fades and Willem Smit takes to the stage. He instantly engages the front rows before the band has even started a song. The set kicks off with an energetic ‘Scrambled Eggs’ followed by ‘Moping’, a buoyant tune that belies its title. The band are a mobile, loose and rocking six-headed perpetual-motion monster. Smit’s relish for performing is exemplified by the way he kicks out his legs while playing his guitar in the sort of ungainly style that would prompt Craig Revel Horwood at get out his 1 paddle. Even when the keyboardist is frantically gesturing to the sound desk to be turned up, it is done with a flamboyant high-stakes flourish. ‘Punch Drunk Love’ is more laid-back and is the first indication of the role saxophone plays in their live sound. One of their guitarists doubles, trebles and quadruples as saxophonist, clarinettist and whistler. ‘Bones’ serves as a reminder that while their angularity and Smit’s obtuse lyrics earn them comparisons with Pavement, they have a rare dynamism that recalls early Pixies. Their fastest numbers are particular highlights, the cavorting ‘Hole’ moving from African guitar to a brief barroom singalong while ‘Tyres Skid’ has a big 1980s movie pop soundtrack energy.
Their playful nature is illustrated by their between-song chat. While Smit gives the audience the traditional flattery about loving Manchester, he cheekily suggests that he prefers Bristol and engages the audience in a debate about whether Bristol or Cardiff is better.
While most of their set is taken from their current album, ‘Human Assholes’, they dip into ‘Still Willing’ for ‘Intangible’ and a rendition of ‘Round’ that has euphoric energy. Their exceptional range of dynamics is apparent in the way it instantly segues into jazz club sax and piano before moving onto to the crashing noise of ‘Object Permanence’.
They show a reluctance to follow traditional set structures that dictate ending with a bang, instead choosing a quietly reflective take on ‘Human Assholes’. Similarly, Smit eschews the nonsense of getting an audience to beg for an encore by factually stating that they will be back soon and suggesting that they will play a request if we ask nicely.
Personal Trainer do exude a rare air of spontaneity which is heightened by encoring with one of their earliest songs, ‘Fiddle Funk’ in response to an Instagram request earlier in the day. To my delight, they dip into their incendiary first album, Big Love Blanket’, for a frenetic ‘Milk’ and follow it with ‘The Lazer’, another blazing cut from their debut, even if the momentum is interrupted by band introductions which give them opportunities to display their solo virtuosity.
What distinguishes Personal Trader from their contemporaries is their unpredictability. They go way beyond variations on broadly similar material. Their 80-minute set is a perfect combination of changing moods that takes in huge pop songs alongside moments of experimentation, cocktail bar easy listening jazz and crashing noise, all played with a looseness that while teetering on the brink of disintegration is reassuringly structurally precise. Most importantly of all, they exude pure infectious and irresistible joy.
I was editor of the long-running fanzine, Plane Truth, and have subsequently written for a number of publications. While the zine was known for championing the most angular independent sounds, performing in recent years with a community samba percussion band helped to broaden my tastes so that in 2021 I am far more likely to be celebrating an eclectic mix of sounds and enthusing about Made Kuti, Anthony Joseph, Little Simz and the Soul Jazz Cuban compilations as well as Pom Poko and Richard Dawson.
