Let’s drink radioactive beer at the end of the world

Goose Loop

For as cold a title Let’s drink radioactive beer at the end of the world is, Goose Loop’s blend of ambient and jungle is aptly frigid for this ethereal and desolate album.

As a soundscape, radioactive beer sounds like a video game soundtrack to a haunted city, occasionally punctured by boss battle music for an invisible enemy. There’s an elusive quality to its 7-track sequencing that seems illegible on a track basis but cohesive tonally when taken as a whole.

The first half of the album meditates on a simple descending three note melody, sped up by some drum and bass or slowed down in a wet and hollow background. The sequencing of the first two tracks, “that was a bad night” and “butterflies glow the dark forest,” pair together nicely in a lush production that adds some space to expand its starkness.

The latter half of the album gets even colder. “i don’t remember last few month” sits uncomfortably with its metallic strums and thumping bass to create a barren and sharp soundscape. While the final and (sort of) titular, “drinking radioactive beer at the end of the world,” phases in and out of a bright and ghostly tone to phase out the album, the soft sampling of a drum loop fading in the background. A track that mimics the sensory tick of opening and closing your hand-covered ears in a loud room.

Goose Loop’s following release, Music to go to a bar for a drink, provides a similar experience, though it feels more like B-side to radioactive beer. The shorter of the two, its production follows an emptier, unstructured path. That’s not to say as a negative, but more that its grip is less memorable comparatively.

As a duo, these two albums make for an interesting zag to the jungle and drum & bass genres, pulling them into a washier fluctuation that feels right for walk in February.