From July 31 to August 2, Bucharest will host the first edition of Stray Lights Festival, a new event dedicated to music that resists categorisation and embraces artistic exploration.
The festival marks the partnership between the Stray Lights community, a catalyst for emerging talents whose work often exists beyond conventional genres, and Control. United by a shared commitment to creative freedom, they present a festival that shines a light on musicians who transform the fringes into spaces of innovation and discovery.
For three days, the audience will be able to discover artists who navigate between post-punk, noise rock, shoegaze, ambient, experimental, and other sonic territories that are hard to categorize but impossible to ignore. The first confirmed acts are The Murder Capital (Ireland), DITZ (UK), The 113 (UK), Orkid, Baby Elvis, Brainwasher, Second Wave, Asincron, and Black Water.
Stray Lights Festival was born from the belief that some of the most important musical experiences occur outside the mainstream circuits. It is a festival built for music that is loud, fragile, abrasive, hypnotic, dissonant, or devastating. For artists who build worlds out of tension, atmosphere, and emotional intensity. For people who still go to concerts to feel something real.
“Stray Lights 2.0 is a necessity. It’s a way for as many bands as possible - those making alternative, contemporary, and relevant music in Romania - to come together, collaborate, and support one another. Most of these bands are overlooked, and many disappear after a year or two. There is no real plan for supporting and developing this much-needed form of creative expression. Stray Lights isn’t a booking agency, a label, or a production company - it’s a small group of people trying to help each other out, each in their own way,” says Vlad Ilicevici, a member of Orkid and the project’s initiator.
LINEUP Day 2:
Hailing from Leeds, one of the most vibrant hubs of the new British underground scene, The 113 have quickly built a reputation for their abrasive and deeply contemporary sound. Their music transforms the anxieties of the digital age into sonic explosions marked by jarring guitars, unsettling rhythms, and a constant sense of urgency.
The band’s latest release, Leach, explores themes such as digital surveillance, data collection, and the feeling of powerlessness in the face of massive technological structures. Straddling the line between social commentary and personal confession, The 113 offers one of the most relevant and unsettling perspectives on the present, confirming their status as a key name in the new generation of British alternative music.
One of the freshest and most energetic acts on the Bucharest underground scene, Brainwasher blends hardcore, dance-punk, and a DIY attitude into a performance that refuses to compromise. With lyrics addressing social inequality, alienation, and contemporary digital realities, the band transforms generational frustration into collective energy and controlled chaos.
Composed of Daniel Antohi and Radu Dorobanțu, Second Wave builds a cinematic soundscape on stage where post-rock, shoegaze, and ambient coexist naturally. Although a duo, the project manages to create expansive and immersive live experiences, built from atmospheric layers, effects, and contrasts between fragility and emotional outbursts.
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Tickets are available in two sales phases:
Early Bird passes can be purchased until July 30 for 380 lei, and during the festival, from July 31 to August 2, the pass price will be 450 lei.