Detroit Producer's Bleak Beats Capture Paranoia of Modern Times

Quelle Chris, the Detroit-based rapper and producer, has released a new instrumental album titled "Beware Beware Beware (More Lullabies)" that serves as a reaction to the shredding of the social contract in recent years. The album, a sequel to his 2016 release "Lullabies for the Broken Brain," evokes a fractious society of white-knuckled paranoia through its bleak atmosphere and unsettling sonic elements.

One minute into the album, a distorted, inhuman voice emerges, repeating the chilling phrase "Body after body after body" in a glassy-eyed timbre. This voice reappears in the title track, shifting from a muffled, druggy drone to an anxious squeak over the course of a minute. The underlying beats, a trance-inducing Dr. John ritual of toms and handclaps, wrap around an ominous, ascending bassline, locking the listener in a doom loop.

Quelle's idiosyncratic production style, with its loping drum patterns and jagged samples, combines into unintuitive grooves that capture the sense of crisis and collapse. Despite the warm tape saturation that blankets the album, "Beware Beware Beware" feels more like a document of a fractured society than a comforting lullaby.