Thushara Goonewardene (born 6th October, 1980) is a UK
based Jungle, Techno and leftfield Drum & Bass producer, who also
DJs when he thinks the time is right. The focus on thinking translates
to a kind of thinking man's Electronica, populated by dense rhythm
sections, microsound collage, interspersed with directional glitches,
twists and turns for the listener to follow.Early Influences
Thushara's influences for Drum & Bass come from listening to it while at school, along with Rock and Metal, and afterward in his London upbringing, where he gravitated to contemporary Classical and Ambient music by way of Vangelis, Helios and Max Richter. Prodiguous producers including early Adam F, the Reinforced Records camp, and early Technical Itch won the day at the time in D&B terms. His experiences working in the studio proper came from his days with Lab Creation, meeting James Shiva, and their previous Pressure parties. This was where Thushara found out how the music sounded through professional monitors and the studio process as a singular experiential entity.
Origins
Thushara's breakthrough release was on the well-respected Plain Productions in 2007, with "Rising" the A side. This, his debut EP, garnered him attention across the more subversive end of the scene, being promoted on the Subvert Central forum, and reaching label owners with a Starfrosch collective of listeners. Thushara was initially pushing chopping his breakbeats heavily - as opposed to letting things roll out - a technique he turned inside out as time progressed. 2010's "The Painting Space Vols.2 & 3" on Pinecone Moonshine saw Thushara contribute two tracks: "Reaching Out" and "Why So Serious?", typified by basketball bass bounce, detailed layering and off-kilter harmonics.
Being inspired from the realms of Technicality club nights in London and newer nights like Rupture, with a Phil Source classics set noted in his Kmag interview in 2011, the focus remains dancefloor friendly drums, but the playing field with a Fushara tune is open wide to accomodate all areas. And it would seem the reliance on textural utopia/dystopia juggling, as an extension of his suburban life in London and Sheffield, gives a neat flexibility to Fushara's production style. This flexing of opposites is also atypical of Thushara's work as Fushara - at once organic but mechanical on tracks like "Ambient Locomotion", from his debut album "Tales From A Concrete City", released on Canadian imprint Make:Shift, with Detroit synths to match this pulsation - he's capable of versatile shape-shifting when the groove has been laid down.
On one hand, Thushara's tendencies with drum breaks are firmly rooted in finding an all-important groove to base a track around. On another, his abilities with basslines and atmospherics sets him apart from more conservative beatsmiths, and his route to completion is never tried and tested.
Work In Progress
Thushara's latest album is the more two-step friendly "Through The Doors To Oblivion" on Omni Music. The correlation with artistic evolution and diversity are things Fushara as a producer is keen to work on, never resting on his laurels of success - see his remix of Justice's "Sanur" - within the (sub)culture of leftfield Drum & Bass as it relates to Jungle and back again. Now set to release "Creep" on the Anchorage Sound compilation alongside promising deeper sounds stalwart Nuage, Good Looking Records' Rantoul and Pinecone Moonshine's Ibunshi, the future looks one of new found lands, new found sounds in Thushara's world.
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