Trash Inc.

Electro | Lebanon

Born in Beirut in 1981, Nabil Saliba (aka Trash Inc.) spent the majority of his childhood in Lebanon. Although having no apparent musical influence or guidance as a child, he developed a keen interest in the sounds of the 80s through the radio and sci-fi TV shows available at the time. Six months of uncertain piano lessons were of no immediate result, but this helped Nabil realize that he could reproduce any melody he heard, on a very basic home keyboard.

With the illicit influence of the underground metal scene in the 90s, Nabil got into drumming at the age of 15. What seemed to be at first a mere teenage hobby, was soon to get him deeper into music, with 3 years of drum lessons that led him to discover jazz, funk and fusion; later on, the acquisition of an electronic drum kit turned his ears back to, inevitably, electronic sounds. This resulted in several live performances in downtown Beirut with local collective Art.core in 2001.
In 2002, after graduating from IESAV with a BA in ‘Etudes Scéniques’, Nabil headed for London, where he attended SAE’s Recording Arts program. After a period of swift band-hopping between Lebanon and England, from 2002 to 2005, Nabil settled down in Beirut as drummer of pop punk outfit The New Government, where his production skills and academic knowledge of sound were a vital contribution to the band’s debut album in 2006.

All the while, Nabil was also developing numerous electronic music projects in his spare time (his most successful production during this period, ‘Punk Rock Bitch’, was released on local compilation Lebanese Underground, and was commissioned by EA Sports for the soundtrack of their game FIFA 2007). Upon leaving The New Government late in 2007, Nabil was able to turn all his focus and energy to electronic music, from collaborating with close friend Jawad Nawfal (aka Munma), to various electronic side-projects (www.myspace.com/slutterhouse). Today, Nabil is a full-time electronic music producer and performer and has lately been working on the sound design for several short movies, with a distinct preference for animation art.

His first full-length release, Ultramind, a brilliant concoction of modern electronic sounds and vintage keyboard riffs from the 80s and 90s, is released by Lebanese-bred Incognito Records in March 2009.

Ziad Nawfal