Kid Fourteen Chases Love and Devotion on Synth-Pop Single ‘Hold’

Lebanese artist Kid Fourteen has garnered a considerable following for his peculiar sonic aesthetics, a sound that doesn’t really sit neatly in any single lane, but rather forms a patchwork of pop, post-punk, noise and experimental jazz and electronics. However, over the past few months, he has been teasing a new album, Far Away and Well Adjusted, through a sporadic run of singles that hint at a new sonic direction, one that leans more into synth-pop and guitar-driven textures. 

While the album’s first track, ‘Here’s Pop’, released earlier this February, marked a sound that felt somewhat familiar to what Kid Fourteen has previously been known for, albeit less experimental and avant-garde, his latest offering, ‘Hold’, leans fully into the dreamy synth-pop purity he is currently exploring. 

The track is a love song, like many of those that preceded it, relying on simple, direct lyricism rather than dense poetic imagery to capture the vulnerability of trying to hold on to a love that is fading, and the humbling attempt to live with something that can’t be fixed. Sonically, the song sits somewhere in the classic new age sound, yet imbued with the refreshing modernity of the familiar sound of NY outfit Geese and the coming-of-age duo Ear. It feels like something you’d listen to on a late-night drive after a traumatic experience, when you don’t want to feel like your world is collapsing. 

Despite this shift in both sonic and lyrical direction, ‘Hold’ still feels distinctly, very much Kid Fourteen. It lies in his ghostly vocals, as well as the layered arrangements and cinematic textures hidden beneath the surface of the synth-pop gloss. The accompanying video, marking Kid Fourteen’s directorial debut, extends this sensibility visually. Shot in fragmented, fast-cut sequences, it follows him and a young woman through quiet, ordinary moments that accumulate a sense of emotional weight, evoking the feeling of chasing something that is already fading out of reach.