Stream LISA’s Alter Ego and more albums for New Music Friday

The premise of BLACKPINK LISA's debut solo album, Alter Ego, is something like multiple personality disorder. One of the album’s promo images depicts the singer in five different aesthetics, a nod to the global superstar’s many identities and sounds. “New Woman” with Rosalía goes experimental alt-pop; “Thunder” is EDM-rap; “Elastigirl” is the closest K-pop-sounding song, and there are some ballads and disco bops thrown in as well. With features from Megan Thee Stallion, Future, Dojo Cat, and RAYE — it’s clear LISA is throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. Some songs fall flat, but most work. After sitting through all the experimentation, I’ve gathered a decent stable of favorites: “When I’m With You,” a sparkling R&B joint with Tyla (that should’ve been a single), the Meg feature “Rapunzel,” and “Thunder,” to name the highlights. It confirms to me that the flexible star is at her most sturdy when she’s at balance, between rapper and singer. —Steffanee Wang

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The music of Ichiko Aoba traces the blurred borders between apparent opposites. On the Japanese guitarist and singer-songwriter’s new album, Luminescent Creatures, she sings often of dissolved demarcations — between life and death, light and dark, angels and demons, the water within our bodies and the water without, earth and sea and sky. Inspired by the bioluminescent beings Aoba encountered on free dives from the Ryūkyū Islands, the new album reaches extremes of acoustic intimacy (“FLAG”) and lush grandeur (“Luciférine”). The rest of its tracks falling somewhere between these two poles, “like cushions between them,” she tells The FADER. — Raphael Helfand. Read our full profile here.

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If [Instupendo's 2021 album] Love Power was a rocket ship hurtling towards the sky, RipStupendo captures the brief moment that the vessel hovers above the clouds. The 11-track album eschews percussion almost entirely while smudging together pop like paints on a palette. You’ll occasionally recognize colors: hues of “I Want It That Way” on “Human Nature,” the steel tones of a hook from a future Lady Gaga chart-topper on “Always,” William Orbit’s pioneering production for millennium pop on “Crow.” And throughout the music, the shadowy tones of emo melodies are rendered green and lush, and spread across the album like a forest canopy. Its gentle yet daring composition makes RipStupendo a noteworthy addition in the realm of pseudo-ambient pop championed by Oklou and Malibu (who guests on the song “Kissout”). The songs may feel like embers, but the fires they stoke are grand and consuming. — Jordan Darville. Read our interview with Instupendo here.

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British band bdrmm (pronounced "bedroom") have undergone something of a quiet revolution since they first emerged five years ago. On their 2020 debut they ticked a lot of the standard indie rock boxes, their guitars jangled and the melodies washed over the songs like a pleasant breeze. They followed that in 2023 with I Don't Know, which was darker in tone but clearly from the same stable. New album Microtonic is a real sea-change though, with the band's love of electronic music coming to the fore. "Guitar band goes electronic" isn't exactly a novel move but bdrmm evade cliche by immersing themselves in the broad spectrum of the genre, embracing both its euphoric highs ("John O The Ceiling", "Snares") and the dreamier outer edges (ambient techno track "Clarkycat"). The result is another stride forwards from a band who admirably refuse to rest on their laurels.

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