IT’S TRASH NOW functions as a (mostly) wordless love letter to the music. But It’s also a screed, a manifesto, a series of abstracted diary entries, and/or a catalog of feelings experienced in half-remembered dreams.
AshTreJinkins, LA native beatmaker, producer, rapper, is full of joy and fire and a fierce allegiance to— that is, an impulse to both rep and defend— the genres and scenes in which he cut his teeth. This overflow of energy is evident throughout and across the release; including in the picture of Jinkins that is the album’s cover. He’s yanking a wild knit cap down over his eyes, mouth agape, maybe cracking up? Maybe crying out in exaggerated frustration…? At what? At all the bullshit and nonsense—the “trash” (of which, we must admit there is plenty). But this man isn’t bitter. He’s just committed. And frustration, especially when it’s paired with a decent sense of humor (as it consistently is throughout TRASH), is an energy that can be harnessed and alchemized.
“It’s Trash Now…” We should acknowledge the sonic and imagistic rhymes that exist between the album name and Jinkins’s artistic moniker: “It’s trash” and “AshTre”… Jinkins is a self-styled connoisseur of grit, sifting through yesteryear’s beats like a crust punk searching for that one cigarette butt with a little tobacco left. He’s salvaging the goods and casting off the cheap imitations—all the pretenders to the throne.
