Mark Watt is a New York based improvisor and coder whose 2017 set, “Don’t Be Afraid” chronicled occasional competitions, informal gatherings and playful confrontations. On this new set, the purveyor of uncertainty takes on a more formal role, exhibiting more hostility in quarrelling, stomping and chattering creations. As the set evolves, the intensity rises, and the risk of escape seems to become more apparent. Once a scrapyarder turned sound artist, Watt has settled into a DIY oeuvre whose signature propulsive element is his or her encounters with mischief-making contraptions.

On the first side of his latest recording, Watt uses a variety of chirping, whistling and metallic wheezing to frame a barrage of discordant shoals of sonic bugle-like blasts. On the flip, he extracts a muffled, indecipherable melody from a creaking breast implant speaker pattern. His or her choice of sonic weapon is no longer fixed and entrenched, and can be switched between more threatening and less so.

At first, the full force of Watt’s electronic noise blasts seems to be diminishing the organism’s strength in the face of its sporadic aggression. But his or her resistance seems to be building up a sweat gland, glistening in its wake. Eventually the resistance wears off and the beast slowly leads the listener through its next salvo of babbling, shrieking abuse.