Jonathan Enser is a composer and multi-instrumentalist, known for his work as a member of Nubiyan Twist, and his own project, MATTERS UNKNOWN. We sat down with Jonathan to understand the journey of creating his new album, Silhouettes: A Dream Sphere Journal, which comes out 24th January.
Writing the album
Jonathan’s lived experiences as a disabled and LGBTQIA+ person inspired his new album, which was composed in the months leading up to Jonathan’s amputation.
“My chronic pain condition was debilitating and meant that I was spending any of one to four days in bed after intense periods of working. It was before I had all the mobility aids in order and was just trying to live my life like an ‘able- bodied’ person.”
In his track ‘Permission to Malfunction’, Jonathan explores the importance of “living without shame.” “A lot of disabled bodies exist in a perpetual cycle of shame, rather than existing… As someone who was socialised a man, [I] just sort of got through it and grinned and bared it.” As disabled folk, it’s important that we validate our experiences to create safety in our own identities.
Disability and decoloniality
Throughout Jonathan’s catalogue, he has been heavily influenced by African diasporic genres. Fela Kuti and Mariam Makeba were cultural pioneers in decolonial movements, using music as a tool to respond to abuses of colonial power and to re-imagine a new world.
Expanding on the track ‘Permission to Malfunction,’ Jonathan reflects on how exploitative relationships with and ideas towards labour can alienate us from community and our own bodies. “We need to be careful of those ideologies and how much we accept them.” He explains this is a decolonial way of seeing and organising against domination of indigenous cultures, resources and dignity by imperial powers and institutions.
‘Race Against the Sun’ is another track that explores disability and decoloniality. The tune “is an incantation written by Flavio Correa, speaking to the Orisha Osaine, who is the deity of herb and health. He was a [person with] one leg, one arm, with one ear much smaller than the other and one eye much smaller than the other, and is essentially the God of urban health, and is much loved.
This perspective really speaks to me, of the underrepresented voices in Western society, of people who have alternative visions of the way that things can be, and of disability or the way that we live our everyday lives.”
The importance of accessibility
Accessible venues are critical for disabled artists to reach audiences and have healthy careers. Jonathan uses his Instagram to highlight venues’ accessibility for disabled audience members.
Jonathan explains that in his upcoming tour, he has tried to book accessible venues because of the experience he had in 2024, performing with Nubiyan Twist. “Of the 20 UK gigs we played, the majority of venues weren’t accessible. We’d play to 1,000 capacity venues – some of them aren’t accessible. We played at three or four venues in the UK that had accessibility for artists.”
“There is a lot to be done [surrounding accessibility], and government funding is at the heart of it. It’s organisations like Attitude is Everything that are going to be doing the work and will be the flame, the torch bearers, for how this all works in the future. I can’t wait to see how things unfold in the next few years, and I’ll be representing every step of the way.”
Keep up to date with Jonathan’s work by following him on socials: Instagram, Facebook, Bandcamp, YouTube, and Spotify.
