Distorting Time

On the sixth Radiator Hospital LP, Distorting Time, Sam Cook-Parrott isn’t playing with nostalgia; he’s actively avoiding it. Over the course of fifteen years, he’s grown RH from a solo, bedroom-recording project into a fully-fledged rock n roll quartet, skirting with mainstream success while garnering a reputation as a true underdog of the DIY scene. The release of 2023’s Can’t Make Any Promises left Sam at something of a crossroads – but he was determined not to spend time reflecting and instead look only at what lay beyond. Out of the blue, Radiator Hospital were offered a tour opportunity in late 2025, and it led to Sam re-thinking his approach, twisting the fabric of his previous work into a whole new form. “I decided to do a new live thing I had never done before, where I recorded my backing music to a 4-track cassette recorder, and then just sang,” Cook-Parrott explains. Distorting Time – his first release on Lame-O Records – is formed of 13 songs recorded to 4-track cassette in Sam’s home, with additional flourishes captured at Jeff Zeigler’s Uniform Recording studio in Philadelphia. Both gently familiar but strikingly distinct, it embraces the confines of the 4-track setup while taking inspiration from the likes of Young Marble Giants and Tall Dwarfs. Thematically, the songs dig into the strange sensation of passing time, especially through the lens of an artist and their work.