Crucial Track for June 18, 2026

"Soot Spirit" by Sonic Area

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What's a song you initially disliked but now love?

This whole album was difficult for me; it didn't instantly organize itself into my psyche upon first listen the way that Music for Ghosts had. The conceit of tracks built with field recordings from Japan (plus the album title, and track titles, ngl) had me apprehensive that it was going to be overly goofy and stereotypical & so it took me a couple listens to actually hear it on its own terms. In actuality, it takes a lot of sounds not often heard in this corner of the electronic music world and does some really compelling work with them.

I could've picked most any track on the album for this prompt -- gongwar was probably the only track I actively liked the first time around, and now I enjoy all of them -- but I think soot spirit is the one with the widest gap between how much it worked for me initially as compared to now.