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Breakcore Noise synesthetic collage from the hyperactive CDR. Demonic breaks ad infinitum and eccentric hardcore bangers fused together, swirling in and out of aggression and elation like surging serotonin deficiency, catastrophic sampling mutated and cut to ribbons, stacked into a canon and blasted across inky vacuum Bass burbling into bleeding-red audial overload, stream of consciousness divides clattering break-sodden eclecticism and audacious bubbling ambience, super stepper staircases up and down like MC Escher looney tunes, expressions of old breaks Hardcore enmeshed within, everything sealed in Harsh Noise production potentialities. A whole cavalcade of weirdo, sweaty, aggy fun. I was first made aware of CDR from his Harsh Noise heavy ‘Public Sick’ release (GK#169), and he’s still cranking out noise contaminated breakcore with Ritalin devotion. A real one. Also, scope out a killer CDR longsleeve with this release and peacock your superior tastes and styles to those inferior devotees of the algorithm.

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Unkind Power Electronics, Noise EBM and nightmarish Darkwave perverted and decontextualized by some horny masked puck,  a foul, rogue fulminate of scalding alkaline electronics, accurately named by it’s author ‘harsh industrial bedroom pop’. Classic wobbly-signal power electronics vocal fluctuation spits slathered over (curb)stomping darkwave arrangements, pulsating grinding Bass surges and funky thumping kicks, synthesizers purge and ooze pure menace, glowering tyrannical production booms and blats like a motherfucker. Danceable and decimating in equal awful measure. Kitsch, cute and criminal, like being beaten to death by a super sexy leather demon of indeterminate gender. Greasy, perverse and aggressive , dense and autoerotic, ‘Post Self Abandonment’ represents an apotheosis of design in STCLVR’s sound, equally sensual and bared-teeth furious, a cornucopia of fuming paradoxes. Fucking exceptional.

Phage Tapes

Crucial Blast

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Meet Mr. Garg, the elusive creature behind monikers like Kwashiorkor, Pizza Burrito, and the grandiose Cloak of Displacement. Under the alias Takeshita, he unleashes wrestling-flavored cacophonies on the unsuspecting masses. The album ‘Dummy Noise’ is a bizarre dedication to Yoshihiko, an inflatable sex doll turned wrestling sensation for the Dramatic Dream Team in Japan. Yes, you read that right – an inflatable sex doll in the wrestling ring. Move over, Hulk Hogan.

Further, this record boldly proposes that ‘Harsh noise is Free Jazz’ and tries to prove this daring hypothesis with about an hour’s worth of material. True to form, this high-concept album is a chaotic wrestling match – ‘Yoshihiko vs. Kota Ibushi‘ features crowd noises colliding with spastic drum fills, creating an atmosphere that’s like stumbling upon a band’s wild soundcheck. This opening track is genuinely cool but overstays its welcome at seven minutes. Think of it as the musical equivalent of a wrestler flexing for way too long.

Now, let’s talk about ‘Spinning Head Scissors,‘ where Takeshita generously throws in a bunch of bleeps and bloops, like a digital rendition of a toddler playing with a shiny new toy. It’s not exactly a spectacle – more like the auditory equivalent of finding spare change in your couch cushions. Not groundbreaking, but hey, it doesn’t make you cringe either. A solid “meh.”

And then we dive headfirst into the abyss of ‘Untranspressive Transpression.’ This track features various chopped-up vocals narrating absurdities about a gig in ‘CHICK-A-GO’. It’s like listening to the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist who stumbled upon a thesaurus. Cool concept, but spoiler alert: it’s about as drawn-out as a lecture on the history of lint.

Now we come to the heart of the album, a noise jam called ‘Yoshihiko’s Journey’ that lasts a whopping 16 minutes. Imagine a hypnotic blend of synth flickering, a symphony of beeps and boops, and various noise movements that’ll make your eardrums do somersaults. It’s like Takeshita decided to throw a carnival for your senses, and you’re not just a spectator – you’re getting body slammed by a sex doll.  ‘Yoshihiko’s Journey‘ boldly steps into the ring with the heavyweights, earning a spot up there with the best of Merzbow. Yes, you heard it right – Takeshita is flexing those noise muscles, proudly claiming a throne next to the maestro of cacophony himself

Now the album is running on full steroid infused stream! “Sax Doll” emerges as a standout, with electronic chops, echo-laden saxophone riffs, and a disorienting atmosphere. The sax solo is sliced, delayed, and layered, creating walls of sound that feel both surreal and captivating. Another banger! Takeshita is on the juice!

But beware of ‘Inflatable Sticks & Stones,‘ a track that’s pure filler, a gluttonous addition to the buffet. This is followed by ‘Not a Sex Doll‘ featuring iwkok$10 – a LightningBolt-esque freakout set to noise. The tragedy lies in the sporadic moments of brilliance, drowned out by long passages that sound like simultaneous clashes of disparate tracks that mix like oil and water. It’s like trying to appreciate a Picasso painting while someone’s aggressively playing hopscotch on the canvas. Someone get the editing scissors – trim the fat, trim it now!

Yoshihiko vs. Minora Suzuki Dream Match,‘ unfortunately, follows suit as another filler track, lacking substance. It acts as a palate cleanser after the dense freakout before it.

And now, drumroll, please! We reach the grand finale – ‘Yoshihiko’s Siren Call.’ A sparse and ominous soundscape into the abyss of creaking noise and infernal Japanese moaning. It’s like stumbling into a haunted kabuki theater, where the ghostly performers traded their traditional instruments for an arsenal of dissonant noise.  This track is a journey where the lack of a clear rhythm wraps you in a tense atmosphere, gripping your attention like a suspenseful thriller. It’s like Takeshita handed the director’s baton to Hitchcock and said, “Make it weird, but make it captivating.” 

And so the curtains close on this avant-garde spectacle, ‘Yoshihiko’s Siren Call‘ manages to conclude the album on a high note – a note so high, even Mariah Carey would give it a nod of approval. It’s the musical equivalent of the wrestling sex doll deflating in the ring, bidding farewell after a decade of brawling. Picture an entire card of wrestlers solemnly putting the inflatable warrior to rest, as if it were the end of an era. Takeshita, you’ve managed to give a wrestling sex doll a fitting send-off, and for that, we salute you in the most avant-garde way possible.

Overall, ‘Dummy Noise‘ deserves a solid 7.5/10. Cut out the filler tracks, and you’ve got yourself a noise record that’s not just a banger – it’s a sonic knockout waiting to happen.

Available on CD and as digital download here:
https://ruralisolationproject.bandcamp.com/album/takeshita-dummy-noise

Collaborative CD release from post Metal barbarians Legion of Andromeda and the high lord wallmaster Vomir, a co-release between At War With False Noise, Decimation Sociale and Turgid Animal Italian Division. Total obstinate truculence made audial in incorrigable torpor. Each unit presents a track each of their own material, which is exclusive to the CD release, and contributes to 4 collaborative tracks, each just a hair over 18 minutes in length, which are available to stream and download. Noise Metal singularity, the brutalist monocrush doom-mongering of LOA’s unremitting cyclone 1 dimensional Industrial Death barrage beat anvil strike pattern and repeat roaring vocal invocation, alloyed in heresy with Vomir’s non-entity static wall noise perma-surge, exacting and entirely non-negotiable. Repetitious punishment, warping volume endurance, zealous flagellation meted out by faceless, indifferent inquisitors. Each project’s individual contributions sit comfortably within their respective discographies in a qualitative sense, with LOA’s ‘Hatebeat’ providing a particularly cruel, brusque, lengthy dismantling experience, but the collaborative tracks here truly strike a hammerblow to the collective artistic ego and objective prejudice, non-art annihilation stretched across timeless minimalist millennia, metronomicon Noise Metal from beyond myopia. A cudgel of perfect repetitious obstinance.

Decimation Sociale Releases

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Thirdorgan’s ‘Space Cadilac’, released on Akihiro-san’s own Alienation digital label. Science Fiction radiowave signal hi-jack and abuse, experimental prototypical technology, surging modulated waves of sound slapped silly, punched and probed wickedly. Wiggling waving sample exploration mangling and fomentation of frothing digi sound process creates waves of electronics seasickness, swollen volume pitch spikes, building migraine sweats and ominous salivary response – I’m going to fucking hurl! Howling blown out alarms crest and eat their tails, panning left and right to bewilder and irritate the objective mind.  An interesting detour from purely Harsh sound from Thirdorgan into something more akin to soundscape work or Musique Concrete, albeit shot through a malign, bruised, psychedelic slow rolling cut up lens, cockeyed and bizarre, broiling harsh digital tones rising from the sampling like the surges of eye peeling nausea and vertiginous terror. Excellently difficult.

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EMBTS was James F. Tarr, a legendary lo fi Gore/Noisecore project which may be known to you if you, like me, spent much of the late 00’s and the 10’s seeking out Grind, Gore and Noise across a plethora of blogspot caches and soulseek profiles. Iconoclastic Noisecore from beyond taste or decency, living contaminant pre-genre Gorenoise formed in radioactive poverty, low tek aqueous shitnoise bubbling with misanthropic rage and psychotic confusions, industrial trash, lo fi smash and grumble, groaning screaming vocal nauseatingly mashed with effects, super raw lo fi savant blasting drums, a massaker of Bass noise crackles and fizzes amidst a deleterious din of unidentifiable source, seemingly recorded on a boombox or 4-track. Mechanically separated gorenoisecore, cultural and social refuse made sonic mass, absolutely crude and resolutely berserk in it’s outsiderness. Along with bands like Anal Birth and Decomposing Serenity, EMBTS forged a new low in acceptability and hostility, a rebuke to civility and consensus wrought in blast beats and home made opprobrium. A singular vision. Be sure to check out this retrospective w/ New Noise and also, take a look at Tarr’s blog Tapes and Poverty. RIP James F. Tarr.

Breathing Problem Productions

Barstool Mountain is a project of Mattias Gustafsson, they of the astonishingly consistent Harsh Noise unit Altar Of Flies.  ‘III’ represents a high water mark of uniquely textured psychedelic sound design, auditorily exotic Harsh Noise, ramped up to 11 and blown to fucking shit. Known for a meticulous working process, ‘III’ finds Gustafson in a seriously drunken, bad barbarian mood. Purest electronics abuse, audial shapes in unbearably bright migraine-inducing constellation, chunky ruptured analogue frequencies thrown and hurled from the source, juddering and spitting sonic shrapnel and effluence as new forms emerge through force of will, signal choking pedals and caveman divination – fissures in frequencies torn asunder with tumbling sonics pouring out, standing backflips of rotating/retarding Harsh audio. To be honest, even ‘reviewing’ this record at all is laughably redundant – one need only to read Soddy’s word-perfect summation of their Harsh Noise bacchanal in the bandcamp liner notes to understand ‘III’s maximal essence. The man nails it to the post in a way only he can. “Texture. A nice word, wouldn’t you say, settling into the audible dis-course with whiffs of sophistication, complexity, depth…”

Absurd Exposition

Altar Of Flies

If dub-centric music is heading anywhere in 2023, it’s to the earth’s core. Recent releases by such extremist dreadmongers as Sightless Pit, Gorgonn and The Blood Of Heroes suggest the quest to reach the very bottom of the sinkhole, to excavate until rock gives way to magma, is nearing an apocalyptic conclusion. An apposite moment then for serial noise terrorists Andrew Nolan and God Is War to disgorge their debut collaborative album, a confluence of warped minds that harnesses the menace inherent in hip-hop and dubstep and inflates it to Brobdingnagian size. Grinding inexorably through the gears like a meths-powered half-track, ‘The Hunt’ is a fearsomely exacting show of low end strength, every neck-snapping beat and bass tremor pre-marinated in a tank of liquid hostility to maximise its potential for destruction. Killer outweights filler 10 – 0, but first among equals is the sumptuously concussive title track, a slow motion punishment beating ramped up in intensity by a fragmentation grenade of baleful bars courtesy of lava-spitting No Face Krew lynchpin New Villain. Such is its potency, it’s hard not to wish Nolan and GIW had engaged the services of a few more dissident voices to flesh out the feature count, but minor quibbles aside, ‘The Hunt’ is business end belligerence in excelsis and a crucial transmission from dub’s point of no return. Going, going, GONE.

Survivalist Deathcult

Closed Casket Activities

Absurd Exposition

Split from 2012, both bands hammer through a stack of short-order blasters with merciless impunity. First Water Torture crush 7 tracks of lead-lined Bass and Drum violence, ushered into a steaming hissing crunch of Noise introduction we are then kicked into the pugilistic dirge of knuckle dragging Power Violence bedlam, obtuse dissonant Bass chords fizz and crackle in amp-destroying/tooth chipping potency, sparse doom mongering arrangements augured with hammer handed drum brutality a manifest flurry of blasts, and desolate punchy bellowing vocal. A thing of brutalist excellence. thedowngoing then further confuse and irritate with a swarm of Noisegrinding bangers that go and go and go, bleeding into one another in a froth of blasting haste. Linked at the sides with short screwturns of Noise hazard, skronking, spikey, plummeting riffs ride blown out blasting drums carving slobbering stomps, thrasher mayhap and fleetfooted blasts, screeching bile wretch vocal trades top off a sound of coalescent terrifying chaos. Crucially short, misunderstood lividity.

GK#329

Nerve Altar

God Is War’s ‘Prison Break’, released by Danvers State on cassette in 2021. Skittering, unwieldy, broken legged breaks forced through the fucking modular meatgrinder, smashing and pulverising amen breaks into hundreds of broken pieces and forming alien dynamics blood spatter patterns, beat sequences temporally warped and pressure coiled amidst a shuffle of intense atmospheres. Attention is paid to plummeting granular Bass surges that ride and soar across the cordite breakbeats like mercury, torment of modular shifting dynamics making for chest-seizing rapture experience, with detailed sampling to accent threat and pique the unsettling, nervous tone. Cold and caustic. At times these four tracks remind me of Curse of the Golden Vampire in their noisy amen break mangling and menacing as fuck, bad guy vibe. The threat continues!

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Slacking is a newer Harsh Noise project from the States, whose name I’ve heard mentioned on social media and podcasts as an up and comer to keep an eye on – this was the first of their releases I checked out, and it is immense. ‘Roundhouse a Bootlicker’ (what a fucking title that is) presents two tracks of crude, yet considered, befuddling sample Harsh Noise psychedelerium. Rolling brownout crush of roiling electronics and crumpled squashed sampling, frequency manipulation and sample mangling clutter and crash, battering frequencies rising and falling in drunken hypnosis, harsh and crisp as fukk, with apparent vocalisation samples appearing within the sound confusion. It’s dirty and massive, a take on the classic Americanoise sound, loops and layers shift in and out of focus in suffocating array, pinball sampling stitched within a tapestry of filth, low frequency rumble foundation with smeared, obfuscated sample loops. Track two is a cutting from a live session with Mallard Theory, junky pedal electronics pasting and pulping less-than-visible samples to mulch, overwhelmingly saturated and blown out waves of sound effluence wax and don’t wane, that ends on a total dead stop. Fucking exceptional.

Tribe Tapes

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Vile Horrendous Aerial Bombardment is a now-ceased Noisegrind project from members of Sissy Spacek, Oscillating Innards and others, producing ballistic bulldozing Noisecore with lightning drum changeups. This is their only full length, recorded in 2012 and posthumously released by Nerve Altar. VHAB apparently utilises a hand-made arsenal of ‘disinstruments’ in creating their decimating, callous blast of mid frequency phosphoric Noisegrind opprobrium, 1-2-3-4 count savage low/ strangulated high loud vocal exchange, dynamic caustic Noise bass slaw shockwave, politiking samples, deploying D Beats and leaden thrash parts in the mega heavy drumming to accent melody-less granite slab blasts of bass string contusion, bruising and brutal to the extreme. Noxious, violent, excellent. Aside from Arsedestroyer, this reminds me most of Knelt Rote (for whom C.Mumma also drums), particularly their record ‘Trespass’, but with all of the Black Metal context scorched away, leaving a waring, noisy alloy surface full of bullet holes. If you dig on Arsedestroyer, old Fear Of God or any of the projects that share members with VHAB, hesitate no further.

Nerve Altar

Temeritous, unspeakable, anticosmic atomic Noise Metal split from far outside the illusion, released on 10″ wax by Iron Bonehead. Tsalal opens and closes in deliriant deafened noise miasma, impure rudimentary instrumentations obscured by devastating distortion, through this cervical portal opening they burst forth with leaden singularity Black Noise Metal, warped stricken solos rupture vomiting from the broken cosm atop endless blasting and supereon hissing vocal, before collapsing back into the unstable intro/outro vortex. Singular and irreal. Tetragrammacide’s track forges closer to black hole Cybergrinding Black Death, massive coils of meticulous programmed blasts, tumultuous circular riffs and commanding mangled vocal as a complex mandala weapon to strike dead yahweh in a single blow and destroy it’s foetid world of shit for good. A perfect meeting of esoteric outsider aesthete Noise Metal. Smash the Tetragrammaton. Reject the Simulation. Defeat the Demiurge. Delete the Universe.

Iron Bonehead Productions

The technical expertise of Berlin-based sound engineer Gorgonn has been utilised by some of electronic music’s most illustrious artisans, but as a recording artist, he’s perhaps best known as Kevin Martin’s co-conspirator in G36, the low end terror cell lately encountered going toe to toe with JK Flesh on last year’s monstrous ‘Disintegration Dubs’. Conceptualised around the Japanese Buddhist idea that there are six paths through the afterlife, Gorgonn’s debut solo album is every bit the cratering bout of aggro-bass pugilism his pedigree predicts, and though there are firm nods in the direction of his eminent partner in grime, this is far from a blow-for-blow Bug pastiche. As you might expect, dub with the destruction profile of a starquake is at the heart of what makes ‘Six Paths’ tick, and tick it does, like a limpet mine with a faulty detonator. Every track seethes with malevolence; bass and drums in murderous lockstep, waves of brackish dread crashing relentlessly against the mind’s fragile defences until inevitably, they crumble. Even ‘Deadman’, the album’s sole beatless cut, offers no respite, its queasy slo-mo lurch precisely replicating the moment when a ketamine binge goes suddenly and irreversibly wrong. Gorgonn has uncaged a fearsome beast here. Surrender to its scaly embrace.

SVBKVLT

Most recent release from Midwestern cyberdemon DJ Speedsick. 4 tracks of homebrewed hard as fukk Techno hell bubbling with fertilizer and gasoline. Super harsh acid head melter beats, gelatinous and cartilaginous wizz migraine bangers with hyper clap distortion emergence from unstable miasma, fermented funky wobbly sequencer pile-on, crushingly dense Bass kick thuds to death in skittering Speedcore hard-on triplets/4×4 hats Hardcore excellence. ‘Concrete Hell E.P.’ really cranks the fucking tempo to throb, pushing speed through sense in funk chaos delusion, never losing the furor of groove amidst the haste. Innerspace outcast delirium manifested in some seriously hateful hard tek Industrial Techno shit, pulling influence from hellscape rave obscurities, triple dosed in lysergic lo-fi system-crusher production and cast into blazing 4 track inferno. Another artist who has carved themselves a unique spot within Noise-adjacent Electronic music, a seedy corner of ruinous electronics for those who walk outside the circle of taste, keepin’ it tru with his headbanger scum punk industrial Techno, amphetemised to living fuck forever.

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‘මහසෝනා’ (Mahasonā) from this anonymous project from Sri Lanka. Nearly 15 minutes on cassette, Noise Metal dismal ritual hate and occult death to invoke the summoning of Sinhalese folkloric demon. Deathly yakseya evokation of soul-killing Noise and Black Drone of no-riff Doom, minimalist martial drums shimmer in unnatural heat haze, bass frequencies shudder and throb through lo-fi obscured audio, darkly psychedelic and ritualist, pulsing nahash vocal of the insane. Werewolf beast visage looms through the vibrating sonics, you can hear the candles flickering and smell the shitty amplifiers burning like some vile censer. Conjures a similarly mental atmosphere to Abruptum, Nirriti and Black Mass of Absu, being extremely forbidden and haram, harmful and dangerous in it’s esoteric intents and operating outside any specific scene paradigm. The work is an offering to Maha Sona, who will crush your shoulders with four hands, four eyes blazing through your cursed soul, filling your body with choleric pestilence. Be warned!

විරූපි Propaganda

God Is War’s modular Industrial complex continues to crush all in it’s path to electronics ascendant supremacy with ‘Predation Perfected’. M.Chami has elevated this particular corner of Noise-adjacent Electronic music to such aggressive, dizzying heights as to render much competition invisible. Militarist psychedelic Electronics, cryptic beat patterns emerge from entropic modular waters shimmering with warping audial toxin and variably mutate, dropping bass kicks like massive spent shell casings, claps reverberate at unpredictable intervals through beds of abraded granulated Bass and appropriated drugged sample, modular synthesis layer application and development like military virus in secret compound blacksite. Combat stimulant ambience to build tension and nervousness, chill paranoiac, smoked out and poised to wreak havoc. Refined and more accurate than previous releases, ‘Predation Perfected’ stalks from the shadows in beaded-sweat death squad calm and readiness, bristling with illegal psychotropic weaponry. God Is War is an AC-130J Ghostrider, far out of sight and well within lethal range. Murderous.

Closed Casket Activities

Three live sets collected on three cassettes from the shambling dripping monster of destroyed sub-musical Noise Rock, Bloated Subhumans. Pestilent screeds of utterly annihilated thanatocentrist  ‘rock music’, blown-out and scorched to living shit. Doom laden spoken word/feckless yelling vocals, long passages of feedback evoking early Power Electronics like Ramleh or Sutcliffe Jugend, hissing delays and forlorn echo effects build to forebodingly simple and punishing Bass and Drum Noise Rock instrumentation, often revolving around a single riff and beat which then ploughs mercilessly and listlessly through your sense of worth. Re-infect and repeat until your eyes hurt from wrenching seasick nausea. Bass frequencies forming hairline fractures in your skull, tinny live recorded percussion keeping some semblance of the melted sub Stooges R’n’R discernable, the voice of an unknown ‘human’ calls like a broken half-dead mutant lying on an irradiated, abandoned beach waiting to melt. Confrontational and draining, a true dirge of morbid, mordant anti-music. This thing seriously sounds totally nuked.

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Blistering, brief and brutal EP from overachiever extraordinaire Sidetracked, surely one of the most consistent and interesting Hardcore bands of the last 20 years. Usually operating as a two piece, covering ground ranging from Youth Crew to Power Violence, they follow a consistency of visual and audial aesthetic that means their massive discography carries a rarified consistency. ‘Ammunition’ provides 20 super short bursts of Nihilist Commando style Noisecore polemic and audial alienation from peers and colleagues, cryptic personal lyrics contained within a fugue state maelstrom of minimalist dissociative Noisecore with a Hardcore Punk flavour, instrumentation cuts in and out song by song, caustic booming strings appearing three songs in and bursting the fucking dam with shockwave amplified axe wielding, brutal Hardcore vocal perfection, superfast concise blasting with killer harsh drum sound. Short, sharp, shocking body music. It’ll leave you gasping and choking for more.

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Recent missive from the outside ordinary Sissy Spacek, in the Mumma/Randall/Weise configuration. Abstract topographic Noise maps of madness and fugue Noisecore simulation – oblique immense cut up harsh noise from samples appearing to resemble Noisecore, forced through hyper pressure furnace electronics process unknown, resultant each track consists of several Noisecore/Cut Up Harsh Noise style movements, variably mutated and maligned cut up superfast harsh noise with myriad molten scorching textures, scraping high end pressure release and turbine leg-chopping low end, shapes resembling brute low vocal howl and even spectral percussive blast within miniature maelstrom, terminus register whipcracks, punctuations of deep breath oxygenation preceding a new blast of dense chestplate shattering harsh in repeating motions. Hypercritical, myopic, abstruse Harsh Noise alignment from beyond sonic empiricism. Rellik.

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