Rock Monsters Romania

In December, Stray Lights returns to Club Control with two sessions dedicated to the Romanian alternative scene, two nights different in energy but united by the same DIY thread at the core of the community: sound experiments, rising bands, and a space for growth, risk, and play.

The first session takes place on Monday, December 8, when Stray Lights opens the winter season with a triple release. Taxawal, Midpoint, and Air Lines take the Control stage, each with a fresh single ready to enter the world at full volume.

Taxawal, an experimental punk/noise band born in late 2022 in Bucharest, brings chaotic energy to the stage, oscillating between surf rock, jazz, funk and a visceral punk pulse. The quartet feeds on the stylistic differences between its members, converting tension into shows that swing between restlessness and magnetism. After a 2023 in which they debuted both live and online (“Beach Story/Spider”), played at Expirat, and already shared the stage with Mother’s Cake, Syfo Dias and D.E.N.I.S, Taxawal is launching new material in a premiere at Stray Lights Sessions.

That same evening, Midpoint unveils “Blue Hole,” the second single from their upcoming album. Positioned at the intersection of rock, indie, funk, pop and punk, the band composes instinctively, sometimes with just two chords and a raw vulnerability. Victor Diaconu (vocals/guitar) and Cătălin Manea (bass) started everything in a high-school attic, and with the addition of Bodo Tabarca on drums, the trio has taken on a compact shape, with intense choruses, lyrical hypnosis and rhythms that change direction without warning.

The night is completed by Air Lines, an up-tempo noise project with pandemic DNA that has, over a few years, become a constant presence on the alternative scene. Their first tracks were shaped DIY, and 2023 brought their first record, “Temples,” released on vinyl and supported by a tour that included shows with Omul cu Șobolani and a stop in Sofia. With an expanded lineup (Augustin Nicolae, Răzvan Teodorescu, Andrei Constantinescu and Robert Pita), Air Lines is preparing their second album, “A Leap in Disbelief,” from which a first fragment could explode live at any moment.

Tickets are still available here.