To get to the Saigon club where Animistic Beliefs were performing, I had to slide through increasingly smaller residential alleyways until I was met by a staffer shushing everyone so the neighbours wouldn't get annoyed. The street was silent and serene, the cool night air a respite from the day's relentless heat. But as soon as I entered Arcan, a venue central to Vietnam's fast-growing rave scene, the music hit my bones.

This was Animistic Belief's first time performing in Asia and you could feel their excitement in the pummelling drums and distorted vocals, which moved the crowd so wildly that the second-story dance floor shuddered. On stage, surrounded by people, one of the duo stood bent over a drum machine as the other climbed onto a table, cutting a silhouette in the lasers while screaming into the mic.

The duo of Linh Luu and Marvin Lalihatu combine rave revival and global club music with sounds from their Southeast Asian heritage. Their music is angsty and ominous, with hard drums and sleek sound design fit for powerful sound systems. The duo were in Vietnam promoting last year's album on NAAFI, MERDEKA, which means "independence" in Malay. Like their live show, the album is intense and adrenaline-inducing. Ballroom ha stabs ricochet off Indonesian gongs and miniature acid squelches. Evil trance sirens and icy synths meet Vietnamese poetry.

Luu and Lalihatu, who both use they / them pronouns, are childhood friends from Rotterdam. They're so close that, during our interview at an outdoor cafe before the Saigon show, they kept finishing and expanding on each other's answers.

"When Marv found out I was singing, they came up to me on the bus with Munchi—who we also had classes with—and they were both trying to record with me but it never happened," Luu said. "They were always walking around blasting hip-hop and showing me tracks. We went to a Catholic high school and were very different from the other kids, which was why we got along." (It's worth noting that Munchi, a Dominican-Dutch artist, was credited with producing the first moombahton track and became a globally sought-after artist in his own right.)

Linh Luu and Marvin Lalihatu, the duo who make up Animistic Beliefs, combine rave revival and global club music with sounds from their Southeast Asian heritages.

Luu's family are Chinese-Vietnamese. They landed in the Netherlands after fleeing South Vietnam in the aftermath of the US war. As a kid, they tried to fit in by rejecting their roots because they were frequently teased and bullied for being Asian. "I only started to become proud of my roots and accept myself about five years ago," they said. "It took too long."

Lalihatu's mother is white and their father is Moluccan (a term for Melanesian people from the Maluku islands along the eastern edge of Indonesia). Their grandparents were relocated to the Netherlands after World War II when Indonesia gained independence and Maluku, in turn, also wanted independence, setting the region up for a violent confrontation. Thousands of Moluccans were evacuated to the Netherlands and housed in former Nazi concentration camps, like the one where Lalihatu's father was born. Eventually, the Dutch government built communities for them called Molukse wijk, which they still visit regularly to see family.

According to Lalihatu, all non-white kids in Rotterdam faced racism, but especially those of Asian origin, because of the stereotype that they were timid and easy targets. "I never really got bullied since I don't look Asian," they said. "But that also meant I didn't fit at home anywhere either. I don't look like either side of my family." As a kid, rather than trying to blend in, Lalihatu stood out with long hair and baggy FUBU clothes.

During high school, Luu sang and played the guitar. They also sang karaoke at home with their family, plugging their TV into a little amplifier with mics and singing along to music from Vietnam and China. Lalihatu, who has been involved in the dance music scene most of their life, started going to jungle and bubbling raves at the age of 12. "That wasn't really good for me, though," they said. Around the same time, Lalihatu received a copy of FL Studio, which they used to produce hip-hop beats for friends.

The duo performing at Arcan in Saigon, Vietnam in November 2022.

About ten years ago, Lalihatu was DJing for a well-known Dutch rap group, touring regularly around the country. But they found it stifling and left the group to focus on electronic music again, eventually joining a DIY synthesiser club called MASK ("Monday Evening Soldering Club" in English). Once Luu left home for university, they started clubbing as well, mostly going to rap and R&B parties with their sisters and friends. They were studying leisure management, eventually helping to organise EDM festivals and working with a booking agency. They were also soldering instruments with Lalihatu at MASK, and the pair would jam together, making ambient and experimental techno.

After Luu graduated about six years ago, the two began taking gigs together and officially formed Animistic Beliefs. The name refers to the belief held by indigenous people across the world, including in Southeast Asia, that plants, animals and places all have their own spirits. "We came up with the name while discussing similarities in our cultures in ancient times, and we thought the name would fit well with the ambient stuff we were doing," they explained. "But the name became relevant in other ways. It's like the name is leading us."

They both developed newfound pride in their heritage, especially as Luu belatedly started researching her own. "Of course that included music," they said. "It just felt natural to incorporate it into what we were making. More true to ourselves."

It took time, though. "We had a bit of success with the more conventional techno, but I thought it was important to show a different side of ourselves and our culture," Lalihatu added. "I have a need to express myself, so we very consciously started introducing our heritage into our music."

At first, these elements were only a part of their live performances, and the duo's debut album, Mindset:Reset, didn't fully reflect this new direction. The LP was creative and individualistic, avoiding any trite genre formulas, but nevertheless remained within a Western frame of reference.

Luu and Lalihatu also began to understand their non-binary gender identities better around this time, something they helped each other work through. Although they always knew they were different, they didn't understand what that meant in terms of gender, and they wouldn't begin to figure that out until a few years ago.

"We didn't have the knowledge nor the vocabulary to put our feelings and queer identities into words," Luu said. "We've always been there for each other and are both open to learning and unlearning a lot. Music has always been a way for us to express ourselves and to process things (even sometimes without realising it). It's important for us to have this as an outlet and to have the music grow with us."

It wasn't until MERDEKA that Animistic Beliefs finally reconciled the differences between their live and recorded output. The album features a synthesiser patch mimicking the traditional Vietnamese đàn bầu, a zither instrument with one string that bends and warbles. The duo also have Moluccan instruments in their studio, including a tifa, which features on the LP as both a rhythm instrument and a drum. Lalihatu built the drum out of wood and goat skin with their father at a Moluccan community event. (Their father has been to many Animistic Beliefs' events, even booking plane tickets to see them perform in the UK.)

Lalihatu on performing in Asia: it was "the first time in our lives where the crowd was majority people of colour, and that was a very affirming experience."

Animistic Beliefs also have a totobuang, which is similar to a gamelan, with a set of seven small nipple gongs featuring a raised bump in the middle of the metallic plates. With these instruments, the duo employ Indonesian scales not found in Western music. Most of these are scattered across the album, though some songs feature them more prominently than others. Take "Call Of The Tahuri," which is named after and revolves around a Moluccan wind instrument made from a conch shell that Lalihatu also built.

Luu had previously refrained from buying Vietnamese instruments because they didn't want any made in Europe. As a result, other than the đàn bầu synth patch, none featured on the album. Instead, they recited Vietnamese poetry.

But Luu was now finally in Vietnam, so they could pick up a few instruments, including two flutes. "We bought them from an old, dusty shop that only sold traditional instruments," they said. "We visited another store and found a đàn nguyệt lute, which the shop owner makes himself. He brought out the guitar and gave us seats and played a bit."

After our interview, Abi Wasabi from Nhạc Gãy, the party Animistic Beliefs had been booked to play, surprised Luu with a third flute at dinner. They almost cried.

Performing in Asia means a lot to Luu and Lalihatu. The week before Saigon, they had done a whirlwind mini-tour across India, which Lalihatu remarked was "the first time in our lives where the crowd was majority people of colour, and that was a very affirming experience." Luu had similar feelings about Vietnam.

"I never felt like I fit in in the Netherlands because my identity splits in all these different ways," they said. "The electronic scene never felt like it was for me. Here, I'm seeing people who dress weirdly and are into the same things as me, but they also look like me. All these crossroads coming together is really special."

By bringing Southeast Asian faces, sounds and stories into the global conversation, acts like Animistic Beliefs are expanding on what "Asian" means to the rest of the world—which in the Western experimental scene is often limited to invitations for Chinese and Japanese artists. Luu believes greater diversity improves everyone's lives, not just in terms of creating more welcoming and respectful environments, but also for musical growth.

"Having different cultures come together in music definitely leads to more innovation and creativity," they said. "New ideas and ways of thinking."

"We've always been there for each other and are both open to learning and unlearning a lot. Music has always been a way for us to express ourselves and to process things (even sometimes without realising it)."

Animistic Beliefs latest release on NAAFI, MERDEKA, is available on Bandcamp.