Strange Days presents Long Fling live at YES, 38 Charles St.
The new collaborative project of Personal Trainer's Willem Smit and Pip Blom
Announce debut album Long Fling out October 3rd, share debut single "Flung", and EU / UK tour
Amsterdam indie stalwarts Pip Blom and Willem Smit, respectively the songwriter & vocal force behind Pip Blom and the driving creative mind behind Personal Trainer, have come together after a decade of intermittent collaborations to launch a new project: Long Fling. The duo's self-titled debut album arrives 3rd of October, 2025, unveiling a collection of charming, offbeat guitar and drum machine, kraut-rock tinged anthems, touching on everyday oddities like socks, shoes, and the allure of staying home.
Unlike typical duets, Long Fling doesn’t focus on harmonies or traditional back-and-forth vocals. Instead, Pip and Willem trade lines over minimal, melodic arrangements that reflect their shared sensibilities. The songs are direct but often playful, shaped by a mix of guitars, drum machines, and off-the-cuff lyrics. On stage, Pip and Willem expand the sound with Sal Rubinstein, Darek Mercks, and Tender Blom.
Their debut single "Flung" is out today, capturing the sonic chemistry found between Pip and Willem. Willem describes it as “one of the easiest songs on the record to write”, featuring a “spanky” guitar, gifted to him due to being "impossible to tune and beyond repair", matched by synths that lean into more dissonant places than either Pip Blom or Personal Trainer would normally visit. The drums, made by Willem at home by slapping a mic against anything from the cupboards to the floor, before being digitally processed, give the track a raw yet polished feel, making it a live favourite that builds irresistibly toward its climax.
Over the course of ten years, Willem and Pip’s songwriting process evolved from tentative beginnings filled with creative tension to a natural, collaborative flow. Willem reflects: “Over the years, I feel we’ve grown more comfortable making music together... Assembling a record we have been accidentally making without the goal of making a record was fun, but also weird. It felt a bit like archaeology sometimes. We tried to change things... but found out quite quickly that it made most sense to stay true to the initial ideas we had.”
Pip adds: “We’d never done everything including the mixing ourselves before. I think we both felt comfortable doing it this time because we were in it together, and we were okay with the idea that the record didn’t need to be super polished or perfect... When we each asked our dads whether the album sounded more like a Willem album or a Pip album, they both said the other’s name. I really feel like we made this album together - it’s a true blend of the both of us.”
Long Fling made their surprise live debut in May at Amsterdam's London Calling Festival and have already earned themselves a busy summer, road testing their upcoming album at six European festivals, including Dorset's legendary End of the Road Festival. Following the October 3rd release of Long Fling, the band will embark on a seven-date tour across the Netherlands and the UK.