The press text of Image Certifies, the new album by Kathleen Malay and Jason Kudo’s Ora Iso project, paints a bleak picture: Their record represents “a love letter to a society dying of its own self-induced cancers. Laced with misanthropic sarcasm, spiked by remorse, sung with grief and disappointment, bolstered with the slightest promise of hope.” Originally formed in Brooklyn, New York—where the album was recorded—the duo now lives far apart with Kudo in the mountains of New Hampshire and Malay in Indonesia, the country where she was born. Via e-mail, we asked the two band members whether the respective new homes gave them another perspective on their “disenfranchisements with the world at large.”

Kathleen Malay When I lived in New York, there was a wealth of dark and raw situations to draw inspiration from, and that was translated into sound. […] Moving back to my motherland was an exercise in reassessing identity, an attempt to feel less ill-defined. I’m now armed with a new set of experiences and am curious to see what we produce when we meet again.

Kudo on the other hand states that his move to New Hampshire only gave him “a prettier backdrop and more space to work.” While a negative outlook onto the world is not surprising considering a current political climate in various regions of the world, we were still wondering whether the two are able to move beyond nostalgia for some ‘back in the days’ notion—both in terms of worldview and sound.

KM There was no intention to explore this specific notion, but this is an interesting interpretation. Nostalgia is such a strange ebb and flow of pleasure and pain, it aches, but with a rose-coloured halo. There’s a beautiful challenge behind this emotion.

Nostalgia is not their interest, as Kudo goes on—also not in terms of sound.

Jason Kudo The question seems based on the assumption that at one point Kat and I were happy shiny people and that somewhere along the line our lives derailed and set us off on darker paths and that everything would be fine if we can just get back to that happy place… This assumption is incorrect. There is no past any less bleak or bright than the present or future. What you see and hear from us is exactly what you get. If you’re starting from a point of nostalgia and trying to move into sound then you’ve already lost the plot. I have no interest in music based in nostalgia that isn’t a complete deconstruction of a form (and even that has had its time, and that time has passed).

On Image Certifies, they use a combination of industrial and no wave sounds combined with Americana guitars-riffs, while Malay sings on top of the detuned whole. If Downwards would be a 90s alt rock¹ label, this could be some kind of prototype record to define such a style. However, when asked about how this combination came about, the two deny the aforementioned influences. Malay states that she is not really “a music nerd” and that her output is much more dependent on a respective mood. Kudo states that he wants to move beyond such building blocks—however deliberately used they may be or not.

JK I listen to and appreciate all styles of music but if you want to listen to a no wave record listen to a no wave record, if you want to listen to an Americana record, listen to an Americana record and so on and so forth. It’s impossible not to have the past seep into your work in some sense but if it’s your basic building block you’re just insulting people’s intelligence—or you’re lazy which might be worse. […] If I thought our record could be described by simply referring to another music genre or using someone else’s words, I wouldn’t have bothered making it to begin with. Probably I would’ve just gone fishing.

Well, we’re glad they spent their time producing Image Certifies. The album and their shared experience producing might not be “the cure the other needs to exist harmoniously within the universe,” as one can also read in the press text. However, the record itself could be considered as a productive perspective stemming from their worldview. So, is it not just “the thought that counts”—as they go on in said text?

JK Saying “it’s the thought that counts” was sarcasm. People don’t judge you on your thoughts, they judge you on your actions. Given that social media is the opium of the masses, inaction has become the norm but the first step to breaking out of prison is to know when you’re in one. As far as making that perspective productive, if you can turn your grief and disappointment into a record then yes, you’ve been more productive/made more out of it than most other people do.

Have a listen to the album’s fifth track below, get the digital files anywhere and look out for the physical record to drop some time in May. Also make sure to find out more about label-mates The KVB and DVA Damas in the 10^th, respectively 16^th issue of our print magazine—get your copy via Präsens Editionen now.