This is the third work in a triptych exploring Cuban writer Antonio Benítez-Rojo’s notion of the “Plantation Machine.” It’s what he terms the enduring legacy of the plantation system—a multidimensional network of repeating systems through space and time, reappearing in new, yet interconnected, ways as part of an intricately extensive framework.

The titles for all three pieces (including shouting forever into the receiver and when flesh is pressed against the dark) come from the writings of Ocean Vuong. In this piece, I wanted to consider one of the substances that fuelled the earliest repetitions of the Machine: sugar. Written in 2023 with the support of Columbia Composers for New York-based Wavefield Ensemble, Even sweetness can scratch the throat explores the role of addiction regarding the Caribbean sugar plantations, a collection of integrated smaller machines operating as part of the larger Machine. Marcus Boon elaborates: “Repetition offers the promise of escape, which then feeds structurally back into the marketplace as addiction—or enjoyment.”

The collection of music boxes incorporated throughout the triptych also represent the interconnected nature of these repeating systems. Of course, they themselves are tiny mechanical devices. They’re wound up, their tunes (or output) tirelessly repeat, intertwine, fade away, before being cranked again for the next iteration. The result is a cloud of melodies that flow and interrupt at the same time, symbolising the confluence of machines that make up the Plantation Machine. As Antonio Benítez Rojo says, “it was a machine made up of a naval machine, a military machine, a bureaucratic machine, a commercial machine, an extractive machine, a political machine, a legal machine, a religious machine, that is, an entire huge assemblage of machines which there is no point in continuing to name. The only thing that matters here is that it was a Caribbean machine; a machine installed in the Caribbean Sea and coupled to the Atlantic and the Pacific.” Furthermore, the music boxes operate in their own time zones, as do the harmonicas, which sound as the players breathe in and out of them at their own rates. When all the instruments are working together in this way, the notion of linearity is masked, suggesting how the past, present and future are not only connected, but can exist at the same time. This is why the Machine is so difficult to disrupt. However, throughout these pieces I also ask“ where is the hope?” Or, “how can the repetitious workings of this machinic system be disrupted and thwarted?” The piece winds down with an expansive, meditative harmonica chorale—a prayer, of sorts, through which transformation can occur; the humanising quality of persistent, repeated breath, providing the means to resist the Machine. At the same time, words from The Book of Job are recited through walkie-talkies. The voices are submerged, distorted and fragmented as a result. Yet, the walkie-talkies themselves symbolise the potential to escape the Machine to another place, space, or even a new dimension through their open channels. Sometimes flickers of light from the biblical passages make it through the sonic haze too. Consider these words: “And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope” (Job 11:18).

Hannah Kendall