When Lebanese multi-instrumentalist and one-man indie band, Kid Fourteen, set out to create his third and latest LP, Love, it was inevitable that some work would fall by the wayside. Initially based on the ’12 phases of love’ represented in classic Arabic literature, it was an intricately conceived 12-track album that evolved into an even denser piece of work that also explored human intimacy in various forms.
Some six weeks on, Kid Fourteen has unveiled four tracks that didn’t make the cut, releasing them as Love (Side B). While the tracks are distinctly different from each other, each one touches back on a different vein in Love, itself a uniquely eclectic record. The opener, ‘Stamina Prolongs My Fate’, is a repetitious, pseudo-industrial piece of electronic experimentation, while ‘What I Say’ is a techno-inspired track that features the artist’s trademark whaling-vocals, showing that his punk roots are never too far behind him.
Vocals carry ‘The Empty Quarter’ meanwhile, but they come in the form of spoken-word. The track itself uses organ-style synths to create an almost carnival-like melody. The last track, ‘Love and the City Pt. 3’, closes what might have been an unfinished arc, so to speak, of parts one and two on Love and it certainly feels like a conclusion when you line-up the three together. Part one is a broody, slow-burning number that could easily be part of a score for a cyberpunk film, while part two waded into a more synth-lead ambient sound. Part three follows on, though it’s shaped into a far more organic, unstructured track that provides a fitting finale for a trio of songs that are also tied together by more spoken-word vocals
The EP, overall, acts as a bonus to Love. It doesn’t break any new ground in terms of sound, but it elaborates on what is an engagingly intangible album, even providing a sort-of closure. If the progression of Kid Fourteen’s sound – starting from his time with Beirut Scum Society and Friendly Faces in the early 2010s, to his evolution into a solo act – is anything to go by, then this closure could also signal the conception of a very different sound in his next work.
