The Dial

Your Grandparents are fascinated with time. It can neither be created nor killed; there’s never enough of it, but it can stretch on forever. Time is a form of currency that can be saved, spent, and gambled away. In the end, it makes fools of us all. On their drink sum wtr debut, The Dial, the Los Angeles trio — producer Cole Thompson and vocalists DaCosta and Jean Carter — deeply consider these disparate ideas. The record works as a meditation on time, but posits that in order to truly grasp the concept and all of its ambient qualities, one must remain rooted in the present. The group, who met in middle school in Culver City and are now in their mid-late 20s, has been making music for a decade, patiently watching the pieces of their career fall into place. They seemed to snatch their genre-agnostic but hip-hop-rooted songs from the cosmos, seizing on a moment of inspiration — a loop here, a turn of phrase there — and proceeding in a stream of consciousness. The Dial took shape more slowly, with what DaCosta calls “focused intentionality.” Your Grandparents chipped away at the material, careful not to rush any one element into place. The result is stunning: a kaleidoscopic trip through heartaches and joys, moments of frustration and hope. Their vocals effortlessly switch between elastic band rap flows and golden-hued melodies as the production reaches through time, gathering up influences — from house-meets-G-funk slink to Dilla-time boogie to ESG-informed dance-punk — all meshed together into a singular whole.