Hee! I know, I noticed that. I thought maybe it was a nod to Bear McCreary because he has long hair and they worked with him really closely to the point of modelling parts of Slick's character on him and even having him audition for the part?

In the podcast, it's kind of clear that the original intention was to have him look like he hadn't aged since he left which again was supposed to throw off audience's suspicions about him being Kara's father. But the actor they eventually went with (in part because of his physical resemblance to Katee Sackhoff and his ability to play the piano) looks more like mid- or even late-forties to me rather than the thirties kind of vibe I think they were going for.

So maybe, given what we got on screen, yeah, Kara's subconscious aged him and cut his hair to look like what she imagined he's look like now?

Otherwise maybe that's a really, really old recording. I wonder if it's actually a picture of the actor who played her father? I'd guess so at least.