Sydney punk duo Smallways. didn’t sit down and plan a conceptual two-part record. They felt it happening before they had the vocabulary for it. Their debut LP arrives in halves — a four-track EP called “Mind Your Head,” released in May 2025, and a connected six-track follow-up titled “Broke Brain” — and new single “Know Where?” is the first thing out of that second side. It dropped March 6, 2026.
Smallways. are Stev and Tez, a two-piece working with drums, five-string bass, and dual vocals. They formed in 2023 out of the remnants of two other projects, but the roots go back further than that — a decade of shared life, relationship included. February 2026 marked ten years together. Everything they’ve done musically since traces back through that history.
“What we’re doing now isn’t detached from that history,” they say. “Smallways. is a continuation of our life and musical experience. It’s reflective of our lives.”
The split between the two records wasn’t a concept-first decision. The songs started sorting themselves. “As we were writing our first songs together, we could feel two psychological states forming before we could articulate what they were,” the band explain. “The music began reflecting our past, present and future at the same time. That probably makes sense when you consider we’ve been in a relationship for ten years.”
They named both halves before the recordings were finished, which says something about how clearly the thing had already shaped itself. “Mind Your Head” came first and felt like confrontation with clarity — four tracks that say, in the band’s words, “look at the systems shaping you, and shaping us, right in front of you.” There’s a conviction in that first half that awareness gives you agency.
“Broke Brain” picks up where that belief starts to crack. “Broke Brain asks what happens when awareness doesn’t free you or society, or change anything,” they say. “It’s angrier. More exhausted. More detached. More honest.”
The arc between the two isn’t tidy. “The first half believes understanding gives you control. The second half realises the system also dissects the mind. The tension between them is control and collapse, and no resolve.”
That absence of resolution is deliberate. The record doesn’t wrap up. It closes with a heartbeat and a sustained note — open-ended, pending. “It intends to lead to the question of, what’s next? That’s because that’s where we are. Not finished. Not redeemed. Just aware.”
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“Know Where?” sits right in that space. Built on blunt repetition and jagged momentum, the track’s recurring line — “It’s going nowhere” — isn’t defeatist. It’s accusatory. The song questions whether constant motion equals meaningful advancement, or whether productivity, politeness, and surface-level positivity have become something we refuse to look at honestly. It moves between personal insecurity and structural critique without drawing a clean line between them.
“It doesn’t preach,” the duo say. “It doesn’t position us above anyone. It questions direction and whether we’re genuinely moving forward, or just renaming repetition. It asks what knowing actually changes, and for every single one of us.”
That line about not standing above is something Smallways. keep returning to. Their politics aren’t delivered from a lectern. “There can be this sense of talking at people rather than with them,” they say about punk more broadly. “There’s a lot of pointed fingers. We’re very conscious of avoiding that. We don’t stand outside the crowd and point, we’re in it. Whatever we question or attack in our music or art, we’re implicated in too.”
They explain their work as philosophical but resist the idea that it’s prescriptive. “We’re not out here spraying answers at people, or screaming what we think is right. We understand and value that everyone has a different vision. We want to encourage a collective collaboration and connection.” Still, there’s urgency underneath. “We long for transparency from positions of power, for a cultural shift away from money as status and incentive, and toward something more inclusive, more genuinely free, educated, creative and experimental — but again, we’re also aware that even those desires exist within the systems we’re questioning.”
That self-awareness extends to the way they talk about their own ambitions. “It can sound self important when artists talk like this, but that isn’t the intention. It’s not a notification or instruction manual. It’s an exploration. A documentation of shared life.”
The cover artwork for “Know Where?” was created by Dirk Kruithof in collaboration with the band. It centres on a Möbius strip — an infinite loop with no beginning or end, mirroring the track’s core message. Distorted human and animal figures cling to its surface, suspended in a system that folds back on itself. Branching forms suggest DNA, neural pathways, circuitry. The image works the same territory as the song: whether evolution and technological progress are leading somewhere or just deepening a repeating cycle. The creatures are exaggerated reflections — instinct, ego, numbness through comfort, absurdity. Not fantasy as escape. Fantasy as exposure.
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“Know Where?” is the first of three singles leading into “Broke Brain.” A second single is scheduled for April, followed by a third, with the full release to follow. The dates for the complete album haven’t been locked yet.
About the April single, Smallways. say it “leans even harder” into the same territory. “The song represents what it is, to go into a helpless, sporadic, spiral, following personal, or world impacts, beyond our control. Making us feel like we don’t have control over our own lives sometimes.” They describe it as an anthem for feeling a lack of care — “because caring is just far too overwhelming, without control to nurture what you care about.”
A planned vinyl pressing will eventually combine both halves into a single two-part album.
Sonically, Smallways. sit somewhere between a lot of reference points without settling on any of them. Their bio cites Viagra Boys, Pixies, Talking Heads, Squid, B-52s, The Garden, Amyl and The Sniffers, and Beastie Boys. “Mind Your Head” layered their raw two-piece live setup with guitars, synths, piano, and more unconventional elements — shattered glass, baseball bats. They’re also working on a separate 10-track LP called “Oddly,” described as a blend of electronic, art-rock, and hip-hop.
Beyond recordings, the duo have been a visible presence in Sydney’s live circuit. They’ve supported Shihad, Private Function, Dick Move, Civic, Destrends, Totally Unicorn, Where’s Jimmy, and Buddhadatta, among others, and played over 30 shows across 2024 and 2025. They created Moving Different Festival — a 20-band, three-stage event held at The Factory Theatre in Sydney for its first edition in 2024 — and contributed to the debut of Loud Women Festival in Sydney in 2025. Moving Different is set to return in November 2026.
The record doesn’t resolve. That’s the point. “There is something deep in that, that the entire world population is still yet to grasp, to evolve beyond,” they say. “We can recognise the causes of suffering and yet we still repeat them. We do this in our individual lives, so of course we do it collectively.”
“Know Where?” is the first crack in that awareness. The rest follows.
