I have had so many members of our Group tell me they have made significant and distant travel plans this year. I too have such plans. I intend to ride a Shinkansen train for the first time in less than 45 days!

Group member Alan is in Tahiti. 🌴. One Another member, KED, is travelling to China 🇨🇳 and then her native Thailand 🇹🇭. She is probably taking off as I post this.

She requested a “rex playlist” for her 15 hour flight. It got me thinking. “Why not prepare a playlist of my favourite artists from around the world?”

I have been working away at this list for a few weeks now and am going to share it today.

As you might expect with a rex playlist there are criteria.

Most significantly, each artist has to be in my physical music collection. That is, I must own at least one vinyl, cd or a cassette. That excluded many places like Thailand 🇹🇭 and Portugal 🇵🇹 for example.)

The location would have to be a place I would “consider”visiting on my own. For example, that excluded the band Pinkshinyultrablast although they are in my collection and I like them. [Ed. Note- you can figure that flag out if you are inquisitive.]

It would also have to be a place that I think a member of this group is (or would consider) travelling to this year.

With one exception, the playlist is in in alphabetical order by country, starting with Australia.

The exception is Canada. I listed those songs at the end of the playlist. They are included by province alphabetically. Sorry to Saskatchewan and New Brunswick. I could not identify artists from those 2 provinces (and the 3 territories) that were in my collection and worthy. I do have a four track CD by ERIC’S TRIP from New Brunswick but…

Where there are multiple songs from a country, there is some regional allocation, particularly in the UK. If you want a further breakdown, I am happy to share. If more than one track is included for a destination, the number of songs is listed in parentheses.

Here are the countries listed by flag- 🇦🇺 (5) 🇧🇪 (2) 🇨🇱 🇨🇿 (1*) 🇩🇰 (2) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (17) 🇪🇪 🇫🇮 🇫🇷 (2) 🇩🇪 (3) 🇬🇷 🇭🇰 🇮🇸 🇮🇪 (4) 🇮🇹 🇮🇱 🇯🇵 🇱🇺 🇲🇽 🇲🇨 🇳🇱 🇳🇿 (4) 🇬🇧 (NI- 3) 🇳🇴 🇵🇭 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (5) 🇪🇸 🇸🇪 (2) 🇨🇭 (2*) 🇺🇾 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (2) 🇨🇦 (13)

The order for 🇨🇦 is as follows AB/ BC (2)/ MB/ NL/ NS/ ON (5)/ QC ( 3)/ PE.

Confession- I did not have bands from Luxembourg 🇱🇺 or Monaco 🇲🇨 so I cheated and substituted with bands LUXEMBOURG SIGNAL 🇬🇧 and MONACO 🇬🇧 – two of my faves.

I also had two additions that I could not locate on SPOTIFY. For Czech Republic the artist is ECSTASY OF SAINT THERESA (see 🇨🇿 (1*)) but my fave song by them is not on SPOTIFY so here is the YouTube video for “Fluidtrance Centauri”

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-J5ad_HaIl8&list=PLlkMRpmDAkhAloLgi94l-du9klw6sWWFr&index=6&pp=iAQB8AUB

(SONG 1614)

Even more difficult was the song by the Swiss (🇨🇭*2)( and French) outfit FACTICE FACTORY.

They are not on SPOTIFY and my favourite song by them (of many) is not on YouTube either. The only way I can bring “Mojave (Part I -II-III)” to you is via their Bandcamp link. I will forward this post to FABRICE LEFEBVRE of the band and hope he appreciates the inclusion.

[Ed. Note- By the way, rex almost never has his phone on ring but he loves the bass rif on this song starting at 7:57 so much that he wants to find a way to make it his ringtone!)

Here comes 11 min of magic-

https://facticefactory.bandcamp.com/track/mojave-part-i-ii-iii

(SONG 1615)

Now, here is the playlist entitled “Around The Indie World In 80 (Or So) Tunes”

The stats- 85 tunes and 6.5 hours of glorious indie music for your listening enjoyment. It will almost get you across the Atlantic, or about 1/2 way to Asia.

If you stay close to home this year, it will last you for a good day at the beach or a rave.

As always, please let me know your thoughts and criticisms and suggestions.

Enjoy. 🌏

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0EvHnlI8vs5V2P9GfZu35h?si=U7tYFAaGS4qtF8rXJ6v4Rw&pi=TNWFEoUVTSO04

PLAY LOUD OR PERISH

2/15/2026