Animistic Beliefs is the Rotterdam-based duo made up of music producers Xakalele and RBF.Linh, who have been serving their banquet of carnage to hungry ravers all over Europe for the past years.

Their music, which follows the experimental sounds of electro, rave and IDM-techno, has led them to play live in critically acclaimed venues from the De School, Griessmuehle and Mutabor to events curated by fashion brand Gucci. After touring their 2 EP’s and album live with their analogue instruments, the highschool sweethearts have found new ways of expressing themselves through DJ-ing and solo projects.

You recently released your first ever recorded DJ set! What was the process of that and how did you know it was time to do so?
Linh was already playing DJ-sets and we were both heavily in a music-discovery phase so when our friend Jensen Interceptor asked for a mix for Rinse FM we immediately agreed to do it. :)

How did the two of you meet? Do you often find yourself creatively synced?
We met at the end of Y2K when we were both still in high-school! We didn’t make music together until around 2015 tho. When we play live we respond so well to each other, we both felt an instead click ever since the first time.

What is your favorite city you’ve performed in so far?
One of our recent highlights was at Berlin’s Traumabar und Kino, we debuted our new live audio-visual show in collaboration with new media artist Jeisson Drenth. It was an intense exercise in making sense of the identity of the self and both the visible and the invisible world. We were thrilled to finally see it all coming together that night.

Animistic Beliefs Presspic 3 horizontal.jpg

Do the two of you face difficulties expressing individuality while creating collectively?
Sometimes we do, but at the same time, we know very well what we want to do as Animistic Beliefs. We discuss new topics, ideas and ways of making music all the time. We also (re)started our solo projects recently, so we have an outlet to express our individuality in there too.

How would you describe your style of DJ-ing?
Messy lol. At the moment we’re more comfortable playing live instruments, it’s our primary tool of expression. However, we both started to enjoy DJ-ing too, it’s a nice way to showcase all the different types of music we’re into and to show the audience what inspires us.

Where would the two of you like to see yourself in the next year?
We are planning to release more music together and dive deeper into new media art. We would like to explore and challenge the boundaries of Animistic Beliefs a little. It would be cool to score a fashion show... We’d both like to tour South and North America, Africa and Asia too. Besides all of that, there’s also a “XAKALELE” release in the works by Marvin and Linh is also working on her first solo release as “rbf.linh”. Busy times ahead (っ˘ω˘ς )