Matters Unknown is a restless force of Afro-jazz, celestial blues, funk, hip-hop, and electronica, a shape-shifting collective led by trumpeter and composer Jonathan Enser. Best known for his work with Nubiyan Twist, Enser has gathered some of the UK’s most exciting players from groups like Nérija, Emma-Jean Thackray’s band, Noya Rao, and Golden Mean, creating a project that thrives on spontaneity, groove, and deep emotional connection. Their music is an explosive conversation between brass, rhythm, and synths, moving fluidly from big-band energy to stripped-back intimacy, with each performance feeling more like a ceremony than a concert—wild, hypnotic, and deeply human.
Enser’s travels through New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit, and Cuba have steeped the project in sonic history, but their sound is purely forward-thinking, led by a philosophy he calls Living Dynamism—the idea that music, like life, is always shifting, reacting, and evolving. Their live shows are built on that same improvisational spirit, stretching grooves into hypnotic odysseys.
For Enser, Matters Unknown is more than a band—it’s survival, expression, and joy. Having navigated chronic pain and invisible disability, music became his way of reclaiming space, energy, and movement. . Their music mirrors the cycles of life itself—the tension, the release, the darkness, the celebration.