Korean rock icon Luli Lee's latest project, Brave New World, doesn’t unfold as a neat reinvention story. Instead, it moves in uneven motions – pushing outward, pulling back, then landing somewhere more exposed. What first reads as escalation gradually reveals itself as contrast: fantasy against reality, character against self, intensity against endurance.

The EP opens in confrontation. Tracks like “You’ll Be My Mad Dog” and “King of the New World” speak in heightened language – domination, devotion, rule-breaking – delivered with an aggression that marks a clear shift from the more restrained, dreamy rock and pop textures that have defined much of Lee's solo work until now. These songs don’t ask for subtlety. They perform extremity, leaning into persona and instinct rather than explanation.

That sense of pressure collapses inward on “OCD,” where repetition becomes physical. The song doesn’t dramatise disorder as metaphor; instead, it translates bodily freeze, panic, and cyclical thought directly into sound. There’s no narrative resolution here – only sensation and persistence. The effect is disquieting, but also grounding, pulling the EP away from performance and closer to lived experience.

While Brave New World initially presents itself as a journey into the unknown, Lee is careful to distinguish between fantasy and reality when discussing the record’s closing moments. “Unknown Artist,” a soft rock ballad, closes the record with warmth and restraint, stripping away the constructed character that drives the earlier tracks. Where the opening songs push toward fantasy – louder, heavier, more forceful – the final moments return to something recognisably human: imagined stages, unheard songs, and the act of continuing to sing regardless of outcome.

Adding to the record’s distinction is what unfolds between these spaces. The first half of the EP is built around a character – one who’s destructive, playful, exaggerated – as a lens that allows her to explore impulse and confrontation at full volume. “Unknown Artist,” by contrast, mirrors her real life; Lee describes it as a return to reality once the performance gives way. Rather than framing the closer as uncertainty, Lee describes it as reality – a path home after adventure, not a refusal to move forward.

That distinction reshapes how Brave New World should be heard. This is not an album that demolishes identity to replace it with a new one. It dismantles in order to create distance: between instinct and reflection, between the self onstage and the self off it. The result is an EP that allows contradiction to coexist – confidence alongside doubt, control alongside vulnerability – without forcing resolution.

It’s telling that, behind the scenes, Brave New World was created entirely by Lee alone, from songwriting and production to performance and mixing. That singular authorship lends the record its cohesion, but also its restraint. By the time the EP closes, the question is no longer who Luli Lee is becoming, but whether that question needs an answer at all.

1 When you look at the EP as a whole, did you think of it as a journey with a clear beginning and end, or did that structure become clearer after it was finished?

It became much clearer after the work was finished. With the first three tracks, I wanted to push myself toward something more intense—both conceptually and sonically—compared to my previous releases. For the final track, though, I wanted to close the EP with a mood that would feel familiar to the listeners who have followed my music for a long time.

2 While making the record, were there moments when you realised a song needed to be pushed further – louder, heavier, or more restrained – to serve the EP as a whole, rather than just the song itself?

Since I mixed the record myself, I’d like to answer this from a mixing perspective. If you have a more sensitive ear, you might notice that “You’ll Be My Mad Dog” sounds different as a pre-release single compared to the version included on the EP.

In fact, during the three weeks between the pre-single release and the EP release, I revised the mix and even re-did the mastering. When I first mixed the track, “You’ll Be My Mad Dog” was both a heavy, metal-influenced song and my first time working with that kind of sound, so I kept pushing the high frequencies. I then used that mix as a reference point for the rest of the tracks.

However, I felt that Unknown Artist clearly suited a warmer sound. In the final revision, I adjusted the overall tone of the EP around that warmth, aligning the other tracks accordingly. “Restraint” is probably the best word to describe that process.

3 “You’ll Be My Mad Dog” opens the project with very intense language around devotion and control. It was released ahead of the EP and immediately signalled a heavier direction. Why did it feel right to introduce Brave New World through this song?

I wanted to show a clear shift in my mindset—both in terms of concept and my attitude toward making music. I had grown tired of creating similar songs over and over, and I felt like I needed fresh air for myself. I wanted to genuinely enjoy making music again, and to fall back in love with it.

4 “King of the New World” has a confrontational, almost persona-like voice. The idea of breaking frames and rules repeats throughout the song. What kinds of limits were you reacting to when you wrote it – musical, personal, or something else?

It was something deeply personal, and I think it ended up encompassing everything else—music and beyond. Only when my own perspective and biases are broken does the world I can see begin to expand and widen. In that sense, the frame of creation and the way I engage with the world naturally will grow and change as well.

5 In “OCD,” the lyrics focus on moments where the body freezes and the mind feels trapped in repetition. What experience or feeling were you trying to capture in that song?

I actually have OCD, and because of it I’ve experienced panic attacks and psychosomatic symptoms where the pain manifests physically in my body. I wanted to translate those moments directly into music. As I began to shift my perspective on life and open myself up to new things, my OCD gradually improved. Those experiences, painful as they were, planted the determination in me to seek out and discover a new world.

6 You’ve described Brave New World as dismantling a former version of yourself, and the EP ends with “Unknown Artist” where you reflect on imagined stages and the act of continuing to sing. Do you see that song as what remains after the dismantling, or as the start of something you haven’t defined yet?

Because the song carries my hope that my songs—songs that never got to see the light of the world after meeting me as an unknown artist—can reach farther out into the world, I think it’s both.

7 How did your connection to ‘Unknown Artist’ change between writing the song and choosing it as the closing track?

For this EP, I wanted to focus on the concept—a character that is fun and destructive, simple and instinctive. But “Unknown Artist” is exactly the same as my real life and the thoughts I actually have. It isn’t a constructed character at all.

Still, because I can introduce this album as one that focuses on a concept and a new character, I feel like I can talk more honestly about myself through it. I can express my honesty and sadness almost as if they were someone else’s story. In that sense, the meaning became slightly different to me.

8 Why was it important for you to end Brave New World with uncertainty, rather than something more resolved or final?

I wouldn’t say uncertainty, the first three tracks represent a version of myself that I gained through change—they’re a bit more adventurous and feel almost like fantasy. “Unknown Artist,” on the other hand, feels more like reality than uncertainty.

In any fantasy, there’s a desire to move forward through change and adventure, but I also want there to always be a path back home to reality. I think that reflects my personality.

9 Because you made this EP entirely on your own, the journey within feels even more personal. Did working alone make it easier to leave things unresolved at the end?

Working alone does make things easier in the sense that I have full control. But paying attention to every single detail on my own isn’t easy at all. Still, turning the music and images that existed in my head into something tangible was a lot of fun, and for this album I focused more on that sense of enjoyment itself rather than on a musical narrative. I approached it with the mindset of creating a single work, beyond just making music.

10 By creating Brave New World in this way, what has changed most in how you trust your instincts when making new music moving forward?

Right now, my mindset is open. If there are moments when I can’t trust myself, I think even that—whether it gets expressed or remains unexpressed—can still be art.

I wish I could always trust myself, but life doesn’t really work that way. There are periods when you can hate yourself more than anyone else in the world. [Brave New World] reflects a version of me that was able to trust myself.

11 After finishing Brave New World, do you feel closer to understanding who you are as an artist, or more comfortable not having to define that yet?

Hm, I just wanted to do something fun. Fresh air, a new adventure! I think I can enjoy making music more when my own abilities level up. If I have to choose between the two in your question, saying that I’ve come to understand myself more closely feels more accurate!