B Of BRIZ: On Grief, Resistance, and the Lush Abundance of Solace

Masked, magnetic, and impossible to pigeonhole, B of Briz is back with Solace — a fierce, emotionally rich EP that channels alt-hip hop, dystopian poetics, and lush DIY production into a defiant summer statement. Fresh off the release of 2024’s acclaimed An Encyclopedia of Patriarchy (incomplete) and crowned winner of the Future Sound of Bristol, B returns not just to push sonic boundaries but to offer something deeper: comfort, resistance, and connection in a world that feels increasingly fragmented.

With singles like “Profoundly Sick Society” and “Pale Horse”, B meditates on grief, love, mortality and fascism — all while keeping a raw pulse of humanity beating beneath every line. Her voice? Imperfect on purpose. Her lyrics? Both intimate and philosophical. Her mission? To make art that doesn’t just confront the moment, but helps us survive it.

We caught up with B to talk about Solace, making unpolished beauty in a polished world, and why humanity — in all its mess — is the most radical sound of all.

You’ve described Solace as a “life-affirming rejection of the death cults of fascism.” Can you talk us through how this idea shaped the EP, both lyrically and sonically?

A:My style has been musically sparser in previous releases, as a rule, but the world can feel pretty bleak when there seems to be a raft of people rejecting pieces of justice and progress that we think are precious. So I wanted this EP to sound lusher, more verdant.

Fascism is founded on the idea that there’s scarcity and we have to protect what’s ours from the ‘other’—so I wanted this to feel overflowing, abundant. Lyrically, I wanted it to be centred in feeling and values, not caught up in clever references or over-intellectualised takes.

Tracks like “Pale Horse” and “Reality Forward” grapple with grief, mortality, and meaning. How do you approach writing about such weighty themes while keeping space for hope and connection?

A:This is definitely a little piece of magic on my part! This music is partly my aspiration to avoid doomerism. I don’t fucking know—none of us do. We’re all trying, in our own ways, to make it through this dreadfully messy, unbelievably painful, thrilling experience together.

It’s not going to get less painful if we ignore suffering. I really believe that the only way any kind of true hope or connection is possible is if we’re prepared to acknowledge the situation we’re in—so that we can see the road ahead and find a way to lift some of that suffering.

Your voice and production style feel deliberately raw and unpolished, standing apart from the hyper-autotuned norm. Why is that DIY, imperfect aesthetic important to you as an artist?

A:I’m the type of person who has a tendency to want to control stuff—to want my ‘output’ into the world to be unassailable. This is me trying to cast those aspects of myself aside. To actually meet the moment, with all the mess I’m inevitably going to bring to it.

Not to be an alarmist, but we’re falling headfirst into a deeply fucked-up AI apocalypse. Humanity in its ‘flaws’ and ‘imperfections’ is itself going to become radical—in art, in music, in public life—if it isn’t already. It’s related to the mask, and some of the reasons I wear it: I can’t be perfect, and I won’t try to be. I refuse. This is one of the shapes of that refusal. We can all make art that makes our lives better—even if we don’t have the time or resources or skill to make it ‘perfect’.

You’ve drawn on everything from Plato to love songs to political resistance. How do you balance these philosophical and emotional threads in your songwriting without losing accessibility?

A:I’ve always felt the best art is only ever the start of a journey. With my stuff, I feel like there are hooks and grooves to keep you here—there are beats that will move your body, and there’s poetry and feeling to connect to. Then, maybe there’s a word or an idea or a phrase that makes you want to go and find out more. It’s not “big words” to exclude—it’s nuance to draw you into my experience and perspective on the world.

I’m an eclectic and complicated person, with an eclectic and complicated history, and I’m trying to bring all of that into my music. And if I manage to do that, there will always be something in it for people to connect to.

This is your first major release since An Encyclopedia of Patriarchy (incomplete). What feels different this time around, and what does Solace represent in terms of your evolution as an artist and human?

A:An Encyclopedia of Patriarchy (incomplete) was written during the pandemic and at the start of my forties. I think both of those moments are very much about the deepening of compassion. I hope that Solace is the result of that deepening for me. Mid-life is when the facts of our own mortality and fragility become unavoidable, and to go through the beginning of mid-life in a pandemic means having to confront suffering—and all the pieces of thinking that entrench suffering. So this is me trying to process all of that in a way that might help someone else a bit.