Lindsay Ell - Heart Theory (14/08/20)
Artist: Lindsay Ell
Release Date: 14th August 2020
Genre: Singer-songwriter, Country Pop, Country Rock
Record Label: Warner
Tracks: TBA
Website:
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Midnight Skyracer - Shadows On The Moon
Artist: Midnight Skyracer
Release Date: 5th June 2020
Genre: Americana, Bluegrass
Record Label: Universal-Island Records Ltd.
Tracks: 13
Website:
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Hannah White and The Nordic Connections - Hannah White and The Nordic Connections (05/06/20)
LCM ALBUM OF THE MONTH - MAY 2020
Artist: Hannah White and The Nordic Connections
Release Date: 5th June 2020
Genre: Americana, Country
Record Label: Paper Blue Records
Tracks: 10
Website: https://www.hannahwhitemusic.com/
It’s always exciting the witness the birth of a new and special collaboration project. One of our favourites so far this year is between London based singer-songwriter Hannah White and a Norwegian Americana supergroup headed by legendary producer & composer HP Gundersen. Together they are releasing an exciting self-titled debut album on June 5th.
This unique line-up has already released the singles ‘City Beats’, ‘My Father’ and ‘Never Get Along’ with new single ‘Pay Me A Compliment' set for release shortly, The debut single ‘City Beats’ was debuted on BBC Radio 2 last year.
The album is a wonderful collection of songs recorded live in a bread factory in Bergen and without a hint of digital recording. The production is refreshingly warm, authentic, and honest. After a band tour in 2019 which covered UK festivals such as Black Deer, Lamer Tree and The British Country Music Festival, they are awaiting the lifting of the current Covid 19 restrictions to tour again. We can guarantee that they are going to have a busy schedule.
This album is another exciting chapter in Hannah’s music journey after the successful launch of her last solo album ‘Elephant Eye'‘ with six of the album’s single receiving national and local airplay.
In keeping with the commitment to social inclusion in her songs, Hannah and her husband Keiron are also finalising plans for a new south London location of their multi-award winning music venue The Sound Lounge which will also incorporate an arts centre and community space.
Hannah comments “The coming together with the Nordic Connection happened after a phone call from a mutual contact, now a close friend. I agreed to play a live show and after one brief meet-up in a bread factory in Bergen and a sold-out gig with a mind-blowing band, the deal was sealed.
Hannah White - Vocals & Guitar
Keiron Marshall - Guitar, Harmonica & BVs
HP Gundersen - Slide Guitar
Lars Hammersland - Piano & Hammond
Øyvind Storli Hoel - Bass
Ole Ludvig Krüger - Drums & Banjo
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The Wandering Hearts - The Wandering Hearts (14/08/20)
Artist: The Wandering Hearts
Release Date: 14th August 2020
Genre: Folk Rock, Americana
Record Label: Decca Records
Tracks: TBA
Website:
The Wandering Hearts return with their captivating self-titled new album, released on 14th August. The Wandering Hearts shot to the forefront of the UK folk-Americana scene with their debut album ‘Wild Silence’. Earning glowing comparisons ranging from First Aid Kit to Fleetwood Mac, the album propelled them upon a remarkable journey during which they played some of America’s most storied venues. The Wandering Hearts headed to the idyllic setting of Woodstock, NY at the start of 2020 to record their follow-up album. The result is that the band are set to make an even bigger impression with their self-titled album which will be released on August 14th, coinciding with the anniversary of Woodstock’s era-defining festival.
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Sarah Jarosz - World On The Ground (05/06/20)
Artist: Sarah Jarosz
Release Date: 5th June, 2020
Genre: Americana, Folk
Record Label: Rounder Records
Tracks: 10
Website:
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Gone West - Canyons (12/06/20)
Artist: Gone West
Release Date: 12th June, 2020
Genre: Folk-Rock, Folk, Pop
Record Label: Triple Tigers
Tracks: 13
Website: https://www.gonewestmusic.com/
Gone West is a new Nashville-based group featuring 2-time Grammy award winner Colbie Caillat, multi-platinum singer/songwriter Jason Reeves, 4-time Hawaii music award winner Justin Kawika Young and ACM and CMT nominated artist Nelly Joy.
We love their excellent debut album full of wonderful songs and songwriting with a classic Laurel Canyon Californian West Coast sound. The group's intricate four-part vocal harmonies create a warm feel and refreshing fresh vibe.
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Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - Reunions (15/05/20)
Artist: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
Release Date: 15th May, 2020
Genre: Americana, Rock
Record Label: Southeastern Records
Tracks: 10
Website:
Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and musician Jason Isbell and his band the 400 Unit will release their highly anticipated new album, Reunions, May 15 via Southeastern Records/Thirty Tigers. Produced by Grammy Award-winning producer Dave Cobb and recorded at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A, the album features 10 new songs written by Isbell including album track, “Be Afraid,” which is February 7th. Reunions is Isbell’s seventh full-length studio album and the fourth released with his band, the 400 Unit: Derry deBorja (piano, keyboard, organ, omnichord), Chad Gamble (drums, tambourine), Jimbo Hart (bass), Amanda Shires (fiddle) and Sadler Vaden (acoustic guitar, electric guitar). The new album also includes background vocals from special guests David Crosby (Crosby, Stills & Nash, the Byrds) and Jay Buchanan (Rival Sons). Of the release, Isbell shares, “There are a lot of ghosts on this album. Sometimes the songs are about the ghosts of people who aren’t around anymore, but they’re also about who I used to be, the ghost of myself. I found myself writing songs that I wanted to write fifteen years ago, but in those days, I hadn’t written enough songs to know how to do it yet. Just now have I been able to pull it off to my own satisfaction. In that sense it’s a reunion with the me I was back then.” In celebration of the release, the band will tour extensively throughout 2020 including stops at Philadelphia’s Met Opera House, New York’s Pier 17 (two nights), Atlanta’s The Coca-Cola Roxy (two nights), Seattle’s Paramount Theatre, San Francisco’s Warfield (two nights), Los Angeles’ The Greek Theatre, Morrison’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre and Austin’s ACL Live at the Moody Theater (two nights) among several others. Tickets for the newly confirmed dates go on-sale this Friday, February 14 at 10:00am local time, unless otherwise noted. See below for complete details. Originally from Green Hill, Alabama and now based in Nashville, Isbell is a four-time GRAMMY Award-winning artist and is widely renowned as one of the greatest songwriters of his generation. Garnering immense critical acclaim throughout his career, NPR Music calls him, “one of the finest singer-songwriters working at the intersection of folk, country and rock today,” and continues, “his songs have an exquisite, rawboned realism and deeply embedded class-consciousness,” while American Songwriter declares, “There’s no better songwriter on the planet at this moment, no one operating with the same depth, eloquence or feeling” and USA Today proclaims, “he has developed into one of the great American songwriters…in a world where most pop songs are lies, Isbell is determined to find truth.” Since the release of his breakthrough solo album, Southeastern, in 2013, Isbell has won four GRAMMY Awards, nine Americana Music Association Awards and was selected as the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum’s official 2017 Artist-in-Residence. Most recently, Isbell became a member of the acclaimed collaborative movement The Highwomen (fronted by fellow members Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris and Amanda Shires) and wrote “Maybe It’s Time”—featured in the award-winning 2018 film, A Star Is Born.
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Roswell - Come Home EP (18/02/20)
Artist: Roswell
Release Date: 18th February 2020
Genre: Folk, Americana
Record Label: Roswell
Tracks: 6
Website: https://www.roswellband.co.uk/
The excellent new EP from Zoe and Jasmine. A wonderful collection of six high-quality songs. Crafted arrangements with their trademark musicianship and harmonies
Larkin Poe - Self Made Man (12/06/20)
Artist: Larkin Poe
Release Date: June 12th 2020
Genre: Blue, Rock, Americana
Record Label: Tricki-Woo
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.larkinpoe.com/
After a remarkable two-year run that saw them earn a GRAMMY® Award nomination for their last chart-topping studio album while touring the world from Nashville to New Zealand and back again, Larkin Poe have returned with what is undeniably their most wide-reaching, artistically adventurous, and self-determined work to date.
Once again taking the producer reins and releasing on their own Tricki-Woo Records label, SELF MADE MAN, sees the multi-instrumentalist sister duo, comprised of the Atlanta-bred, Nashville-based Rebecca and Megan Lovell, pushing their music and message towards hitherto unexplored terrain, inspired by their epic world travels yet still powerfully rooted in the creative heritage of their beloved American South. From the thunderous power of the album-opening "She's A Self Made Man," through the nostalgic "Tears of Blue to Gold" and fierce Chicago blues of "Scorpion," to the front porch jubilation of "Easy Street," the album is ambitious in both its eclectic, energetic sound and its resolutely welcoming mission, its universal lyrical approach fueled by tradition, invention, and Larkin Poe's remarkable ability to touch the hearts and souls of their fellow humans worldwide.
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Tami Neilson - Chickaboom! (14/02/20)
Artist: Tami Neilson
Release Date: February 14th 2020
Genre: Americana, Country, Soul, Rockabilly
Record Label: Outlaw Music
Tracks: 10
Website:
No one forgets the first time they saw Tami Neilson. She can hush a room with an original song that channels the hurting spirit of Patsy Cline or the sensuality of Peggy Lee, or bring the audience to its feet on a rockabilly raver. She's an artist with real range, whose powerful voice can take on big ballads, golden-age country, heartfelt Gospel, soul-infused R&B, Western swing, even old-style rock 'n' roll. Tami encompasses them all and is a personality-powered cyclonic force of nature in stylishly retro attire, long lashes and a stacked-high beehive.
Of her new album's title, CHICKABOOM!, Tami explains, 'I wanted to write an album of punchy little songs, popping firecrackers that, when stripped back to nothing but a guitar, percussion and two voices, would still go boom!' The new collection brings much personal and family history to the table. Tami grew up performing across North America with the Neilson Family Band, working alongside greats such as Johnny Cash, Tanya Tucker, and Kitty Wells. Subsequently, Tami fell in love with a New Zealander, moved to the bottom of the world and began her solo career without the support of the family. Her early records saw her in a self-created territory between mainstream country and alternative country, with awards in New Zealand for albums that added breadth to her 'country singer' label: Best Female Artist, Best Country Album, Best Country Song, an APRA Silver Scroll (songwriting) award and Album of the Year nominations.
Her Dynamite! album of 2014 received rave reviews in Britain's MOJO and the Guardian named it a Top 10 Best Country Music Album. Tami's songs appeared on the Netflix series Wanted and the terrestrial TV series Nashville. Tami Neilson's singing and writing is too big to contain, as HMV Canada noted: 'There are singers and then there is Tami Neilson, for whom the word singer just isn't big enough.' The road has now led to CHICKABOOM!, which is something different again, and even more personal. 'In the past year, I started to notice something,' she says. 'The artists I would spend time with backstage at festivals, the ones I gravitated to the most and followed on social media ... artists like the Secret Sisters, Shovels & Rope, Kasey Chambers, Brandi Carlile ... they all had family performing with them. When you tour away from loved ones, it makes a world of difference to have part of your village with you on the road. Not to mention, nothing can come close to that special blend of blood harmonies and silent communication that only comes from being onstage with a person for over 30 years. Family has always been a huge part my music-writing, recording and creating with me, but I wanted family on this project and on the road with me again.'
Brother Jay flew to Auckland, New Zealand from Toronto to record a selection of new songs that have unmistakable sibling magic and harmonies. 'I don't think he quite understands what he's gotten himself into but now the album's coming out it's a bit too late. Sucker,' she laughs. And if you've missed Tami before ' on record or in concert ' then you are in for a treat ... and you might not quite understand what you've gotten yourself into either. As we say: you'll never forget the first time you saw Tami.
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American Aquarium - Lamentations (01/05/20)
Artist: American Aquarium
Release Date: May 1st, 2020
Genre: Americana, Alt-Country, Rock & Roll
Record Label: New West
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.americanaquarium.com/
Lamentations is a 10-song ruminations on the current state of the world around me. I was raised in the faith and the book of lamentations was always one that caught my attention. A broken man Crying out to the heavens, asking why God sat back and let his country fall apart. Questioning the sheer existence of a higher power in the lowest of times. How could an all loving God sit back and let an entire nation's Cry for help go unanswered? I saw many parallels in that story and the current climate of this country in 2020.
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Mapache - From Liberty Street (20/03/20)
Artist: Mapache
Release Date: 20th March 2020
Genre: Americana, Folk
Record Label: Yep Roc
Tracks: 14
Website:
'The First Edition LP and CD of From Liberty Street includes a free Mapache air freshener in the packaging - First Edition LP arrives on limited edition yellow vinyl!
Produced by longtime collaborator Dan Horne (Circles Around The Sun, Allah-Las), Mapache's new album, From Liberty Street, captures the Los Angeles duo at their finest, with Sam Blasucci and ClayFinch weaving airtight harmonies around stripped-down, organic arrangements that blur the linesbetween traditional folk and modern cosmic country. The songs here reckon with longing, desire,and change, and the arrangements draw on everything from Hawaiian-steeped surf and Mexicanboleros (Blasucci spent two years living South of the border) to Bakersfield twang and lonesomecowboy campfire tunes, all delivered with the kind of easygoing charm and natural intuition usuallyreserved for blood brothers or married couples. It's an instantly engaging chemistry the two share,a captivating musical bond that mirrors the comfort, closeness, and camaraderie of the album'shomespun roots.'This record is about as close to the sound of home as you can get,' says Blasucci. 'We recorded it with a bunch of our friends in the house where we were living in a neighborhood that we loved.The studio was right downstairs, so we had the freedom to try all kinds of new ideas without anypressure or limitations. All the other folks who lived in the house were musicians, too, so it made forthis communal atmosphere where everyone was always collaborating and creating together.
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Courtney Marie Andrews - Old Flowers (05/06/20)
Artist: Courtney Marie Andrews
Release Date: 5th June 2020
Genre: Americana, Folk
Record Lable: Loose Music
Tracks: 10
Website:
On her 3rd album for both Fat Possum and Loose Records, Courtney Marie Andrews has seemingly pulled in to one package all the songwriting skill, vocal prowess, and musicianship displayed on previous albums, into one career-defining statement. A break-up record for sure, though due to CMA's extraordinary storytelling gifts, more of a modern-day coming-of-age tale of love won, love sustained, and unfortunately, love's inevitable dissolution
Gatefold black vinylCD softpack
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Kaleo - Surface Sounds (05/06/20)
Artist: Kaleo
Release Date: 5th June 2020
Genre: Rock, Pop, Soul
Record Label: Elektra (NEK)
Tracks: 12
Website:
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Margo Price - Thats How Rumors Get Started (08/05/20)
Artist: Margo Price
Release Date: 8th May 2020
Genre: Country, Americana
Record Label: Concord Records
Tracks: 10
Website:
'Everybody wants to know how I feel and what I think', Margo Price sings in her emotive, bittersweet twang, halfway through her third full-length record. On 'That's How Rumors Get Started', Price has committed her genre-bending rock-and-roll show to record for the first time, stretching out into sky-high soft-rock, burning psychedelic rock ballads, stomping road songs, and sprinkles of pop.
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Dustbowl Revival - Is It You, Is It Me (31/01/20)
Artist: Dustbowl Revival
Release Date: 31st January 2020
Genre: Americana, Soul, Funk and Roots-infused Rock.
Record Label: Medium Expectations
Tracks: 13
Website: http://www.dustbowlrevival.com/
The excellent 'Is It You, Is It Me', is LA-based Dustbowl Revival's 5th studio album over almost 12 years, It reveals the band moving in an exciting new direction. Instead of Dixieland Jazz and Depression-era folk songs, this new collection mines an energizing vein of Soul, Funk and Roots-infused Rock.
The band uses a wide variety of genres and sounds on the album. True to their claim that their music is a “place where folk music, funk and soul meet,” the album also exhibits influence from jazz, pop and Latin music. The lead singers Lupetin and Liz Beebe, whose voices are rich and strong when they sing separately, harmonize for a sound that is plaintive and encouraging. The trumpet and trombone, played by Matt Rubin and Ulf Bjorlin, add a layer of velvety melancholy to most of the songs. Nearly every song relies on the two horn players to enrich the emotional experience and are one of the band’s best strengths.
Like their earlier work, Is It You, Is It Me shows a range of styles that the band incorporates for a cohesive sound, but the album departs from their last album in its preoccupation with complexity and contradiction. This album is more introspective in content, more emotional in mood and more lush in sound. The album is a fresh and energetic collage., with personal favourites including the addictive ‘Enemy’, the endearing ‘Penelope’ and a powerful song about gun control ‘Get Rid of You’.
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Alicia Keys - Alicia (20/3/20)
Artist: Alicia Keys
Release Date: 20th March 2020
Genre: Soul, R&B, Rock. Singer-Songwriter
Record Label: RCA
Tracks: 15
Website:
With her first album in four year New York based singer-songwriter and Grammy winner Alicia Keys returns with a fantastic new album.
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Marcus King - El Dorado (17/01/20)
Artist: Marcus King
Release Date: 17th January 2020
Genre: Southern Rock
Record Label: Spinefarm Records
Tracks: 12
Website:
23-year-old guitar phenomenon Marcus King will release his genre-bending debut solo album El Dorado on Jan 17th, 2020 on Snakefarm Records. Produced by Grammy Award winner Dan Auerbach, El Dorado will further establish Marcus as an innovative songwriter and one of the most soulful voices of his generation. The record is a contemporary sonic exploration of classic rock, blues, southern R&B and country-soul where subtle acoustics and pedal steel shines bright alongside raucous electric guitars and blistering solos.
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Kyshona - Listen (28/02/20)
Artist: Kyshona
Release Date: 28th February 2020
Genre: Americana, Folk, Soul
Record Label: Fish Records / Tone Tree Records
Tracks: 10
Website:
For a singer-songwriter, there's no more basic function than getting onstage and getting something personal off your chest. The therapeutic qualities of the experience have seduced countless confessional composers, some of whom make known that they hold unfiltered expression as their highest artistic aim. Kyshona Armstrong started out enabling others to enjoy the healing properties of songwriting, and keeping her thoughts to herself. When you're a music therapist to incarcerated and institutionalized adults and school children with emotional behavior disorders, artistic considerations aren't even on the table. "I definitely had to accept the fact that when I'm writing with a patient, whatever they want to do is what they want to do," Armstrong tells the Scene as she nurses a latte in East Nashville. "It's their song: 'Even if it might not fit in a form, if that's what you want to say, say it. We're not writing a big hit. This is for you.' " When Armstrong worked first in the state mental hospital, then the public school system in Georgia, she found that her co-writers often clung to chant-like, circular song ideas. "They would find this melody they liked and they would stick to it," she explains. "It was theirs to keep. It wasn't hard to hold onto." Armstrong had focused on oboe at the University of Georgia that and steel drums, which she played in the college's Hawaiian-shirt-sporting ensemble, Tropical Breeze. But since neither instrument was all that well suited to coaxing patients into musical self-expression, she got into singing, playing acoustic guitar and songwriting. When describing the positions she held during her decade or so in the mental health field, she punctuates each chapter with the same phrase: "That got kinda heavy." The weight of it was what eventually moved her to begin penning her own tunes. "A lot of my first songs were dealing with what I saw my patients struggling with," she recalls. "A lot of my songs were about the stories that I would hear from them. Because I can only take on so much of people dumping. So I had to get rid of it and shed it somehow. I think telling their stories was one way for me to go out in the world and be like, 'There's so much more happening out there.' For me, that was therapeutic. I don't like to talk about myself, but I'll talk about everybody else if you want me to share a story." At a certain point, her emotional investment in her patients' pain became too much to purge at coffeehouse open mics. "You've gotta know when to tap out," she says. "I was like, 'I'm not of any use to these kids if I can't give myself as fully as I used to.' " So Armstrong got on the college singer-songwriter circuit, blending skills of empathizing and entertaining. Her set lists might put a strummy version of Britney Spears' "Toxic" next to "Confined," a song she'd written with a couple of 20-somethings in the mental hospital. They were the hip-hop heads in the patients' band otherwise made up of Elvis-obsessed middle-aged men and they'd wanted a song in the group repertoire that spoke to their own experience. Besides teaching institutionalized adults and emotionally troubled school kids how to have healthy interactions with instruments in hand, Armstrong served a similar mission on the board of the Southern Girls Rock Camp in Athens, Ga. And that made her a shoo-in to volunteer at last summer's Tennessee Teens Rock Camp, where she met a bunch of the women with whom she'll perform at the girl group tribute She's a Rebel a few days after playing her own show at 12th & Porter. Armstrong moved to Nashville in January 2014, spending the first couple months commuting back to Athens to record her album Go, but easily made friends and landed bookings in local folk singer-songwriter, pop and soul scenes once she was around more. Smack-dab in the middle ofGo is a song that distills the insights of her therapeutic work and the artistic aspirations she's developed since. Called "Cornelius Dupree," it's the turbulent channeling of a black man's real-life experience serving 30 years in Texas for rape and robbery before being exonerated. Rather than narrate the external details of Dupree's story, Armstrong gives voice to the searing physical and emotional strain he must've felt having to defend his innocence for so long. "That one took me a long time," she says of the song, "because I wanted to do it right. I tried it from the outside looking in. But in the end I was like, 'I have to put myself in those shoes.' " She adds, "The injustice that Cornelius suffered, on a much smaller level I have experienced that myself, just being a black woman living in the South. I've been held by the police before for nothing, and it's frustrating. I've never been imprisoned, but I've been held aside. I remember the injustice I felt and the anger I felt. But I've always been taught I have to be extra kind, extra polite to compensate. ...With his story, I think I just got fed up." At college shows, Armstrong urges students to look up Dupree's story on their phones and hopefully expand their awareness of human suffering even as she's singing her song. "Cornelius Dupree" had a similarly awakening effect when she performed it at a house concert 20 minutes outside of Ferguson, Mo. She'd driven up strictly to join the protests after Michael Brown's shooting, but accepted a friend's invitation to a combination concert and cookout in the suburbs one evening. Folks there seemed downright oblivious to the neighboring turmoil. At the end of the night, the host thanked her for getting their attention. Armstrong has reached the point where she embraces repetitive internal rhythms that emerge in some of her songwriting - likening them to both gospel spirituals and the viscerally simplistic utterances of her former patients - and she's delivering her roots-soul originals with articulate warmth and newly claimed authority. "I feel like I'm only just now stepping into this activist role," she says, "or not activist, but someone who speaks out or brings up a subject that's uncomfortable. In the past, I haven't been the one to [say], 'I'm gonna throw some mess on the table, and we're gonna talk about it.' But I want to be."
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Aubrie Sellers - Far From Home (07/02/20)
Artist: Aubrie Sellers
Release Date: 7th February 2020
Genre: Country, Folk
Record Label: Aubrie Sellers
Tracks: 12
Website:
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