Impossible Hairstyle by the future dead

Smalltown boys living on a city pace who would have been rich, fat and ugly by now if this were their debut. This is their longest release to date
(6 LP’s and EP’s) and breathes their original understated lofi pop spirit, yet the band sounds more focused than ever before.
Impossible Hairstyle, named after Javier Mayoral’s painting on the album cover, contains 14 garage pop songs that resonate nineties and earlier underground indie rock. Eager and sharp, relatively cheerful this time, condensed, bright and punchy due to the straight-to-tape approach in a no frills studio recording setting. Recorded in Antwerp in two days by
Raf Valles Hilario, who established the principle: either it’s a good take and we keep it, or it sucks and we tape it over. No room for ambiguities there.
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The Future Dead have been arranging and playing Pieter Desmyter’s songs since the late 2000’s. The band’s personnel changed quite a bit over the years as they turned from promising young artists to lofi veterans around their hometown of Ghent, Belgium. Since their 2011 debut album they released 4 more (mini) albums and EP’s on several labels and played
a bunch of shows every now and then. No relentless career ambitions, pretty long intervals in between releases but somehow the foursome seems eager to get back together every single time.
Pieter has also been recording and performing music with his new hardcore punk band Batsmasher lately, another lockdown project gone right, one that is currently picking up steam and building a solid live reputation. But he also keeps on coming up with these bittersweet pop gems. ‘It’s the sheer love for the understated beauty of Pieter’s miniature songs and his distinctive deadpan delivery that keeps this bunch together’, as Tim puts it. Tiny classic pop songs, mostly about love for all we understand, modestly downplayed as slacker pop yet meticulously crafted. Pieter writes on a daily basis and describes himself as ‘a shy chaser of ghosts’. Future Dead songs often seem careless and easily superficial, ‘a bit like an ignorant tattoo sticking with you for a long time while its sketchiness means the world to you.’

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