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Japan produces sugary sweet bubblegum pop par excellence. But the
thriving roots scene is more nourishing - fuelled by the dynamic music
of the islands of Okinawa. It is these sounds of Japan's "deep south"
which have recently been making waves at home and abroad. Otherwise,
Japan's bewildering variety of popular and traditional music is little
known in the West.
With a value of well over six billion dollars, Japan has the second-largest
music market in the world, after the USA. The advent of satellite TV,
with its many music channels, has fuelled music mania among young Asians,
and karaoke in particular is wildly popular.
Unfortunately, the overriding image of Japanese contemporary music is
one of instantly forgettable pop. Teenagers are trained, manufactured
and recorded as idoru kashu , or idol singers. Boy bands like Smap or
Hikaru Genji and cutsie female singers like duo Wink offer watered-down
Western pop with Japanese lyrics, their hooklines often sung in
meaningless English.
Such surface noise aside, nowhere in Asia can you find such a wide range
of music : from ancient Buddhist chanting and court music to folk and
old urban styles, from localized popular forms such as kayokyoku and
enka to Western classical and jazz - plus every kind of pop you'd find
in the West.
John Clewley
Classical and theatrical music
Classical music can be divided into gagaku (court orchestral music) and
shomyo (Buddhist chanting). Gagaku came from China 1500 years ago as
Confucian ceremonial music of the Chinese court. Similar to a chamber
orchestra, gagaku ensembles include as many as twenty instruments, with
flutes, oboes, zithers, lutes, gongs and drums. Gagaku is now played
only as bugaku (dance music) or kangen (instrumental music), at the
Imperial court and at a few Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples.
Unlike Western classical music, themes aren't stated and repeated.
Instead, the rhythms are based on breathing and the result is a form
that sounds avant-garde - sometimes discordant, sometimes meditative.
Less is more in gagaku .
Japan's most famous theatrical form, No , was synthesized in the
fourteenth century from religious pantomimes, folk theatre and court
music. No, which combines oratory, dance and singing in a highly
stylized manner, is still performed and continues to influence both
Japanese and foreign theatre and music. There are solo singers, small
choruses singing in unison and an instrumental ensemble of fue (bamboo
flute), the only melodic instrument other than the voice, two hourglass
drums and a barrel drum.
Bunraku puppetry came after No, and was one of the sources of the
colourful and sensual Kabuki theatre , which emerged in the early
seventeenth century. Its combination of No narratives, chanting and
music based on the shamisen (three-string lute), flute and drums led to
a more lively and popular musical style. This boosted the popularity of
the new nagauta style of shamisen playing, which in turn influenced
popular styles to come, including folk music.
Ancient Roots
The many musical styles found in Japan have their roots in Japan's
particular historical circumstances - China, Korea, Central and
Southeast Asia all exerted considerable influence on the early
development of music. The history of music in Japan dates back to the
third century BC, but the arrival of eighty Korean musicians in 453 AD
and the introduction of Buddhism in the mid-sixth century are the key
events. Gagaku , court music and religious music , survive from this
period, and Buddhist chanting, shomyo , can still be heard in temples
today.
Japanese scholars tend to say all music prior to the Meiji reformation
of 1868 is traditional, but within that definition there are different
styles from each epoch. Early history (400-1200) produced religious and
court styles. In the years to 1500, as society became more militarized,
theatrical genres like No drama developed and itinerant monks chanted
long historical narratives to the biwa , a Japanese lute whose origins
can be traced back to the Silk Road in Central Asia.
Between 1500 and 1868, Japanese rulers imposed a period of near total
isolation , and outside influences were minimized. Old instruments like
the koto (a kind of zither) continued to develop repertoire, as did the
shakuhachi bamboo flute. However, it was the three-stringed plucked lute,
the shamisen , that came to represent new styles, reflecting the
development of a sophisticated pre-modern urban culture.
The shamisen provided the perfect musical accompaniment for popular
styles, dance and drama, as well as the narrative folk styles often
called min'yo . The nagauta shamisen style for Kabuki theatre also
developed at this time, as did the sankyoku , the typical instrumental
ensemble of the time - koto, shamisen, shakuhachi and kokyu (a bowed
fiddle). Very popular during the Edo period (1600-1868) were the many
kinds of folk songs about work, love and so on. Singers were accompanied
by shamisen, shakuhachi , drums and flutes.
Traditional instruments
Shakuhachi
A bamboo flute with five finger-holes - four on the front and one on the
back - the shakuhachi has a full range of chromatic notes, obtained by
adjusting the position of the flute and partially covering the holes.
The colour of its tone, while always soft and pure, depends on the
bamboo used. During the Edo period, it was played primarily in chamber
ensembles with koto and shamizen , although more recently there's been a
revival of the more ancient solo repertoire as an aid to meditation.
Biwa and Shamizen
A pear-shaped plucked lute with four or five strings, the biwa
originated in China. It was played both in gagaku ensembles and solo,
but had almost fallen out of use by the end of World War II, until Toru
Takemitsu, Japan's most famous contemporary composer, started writing
for it, precipitating a revival.
A three-stringed lute, the shamizen also came to Japan from China, via
Okinawa, where it's known as a shansin . The earliest shamisen , music
is credited to biwa players in the early seventeenth century and it has
become one of the most popular instruments in Japanese music.
Koto
The Japanese long zither, or koto , usually has thirteen strings with
moveable bridges and is played with fingerpicks. It is thought to have
originated from the Chinese zheng and to have arrived in Japan in the
eighth century. Similar instruments are found in Korea ( kayagum ) and
Vietnam ( dan tranh ). Found in gagaku ensembles, it has developed a
rich solo tradition. It is also used to accompany songs and in small "chamber
music" ensembles, together with a second koto , a shamizen , or a
shakuhachi .
Min'yo - folk music
Japan's min'yo (folk) tradition is long and rich. Each region has its
own style, perhaps the most famous of all being the instrumental
shamisen style from Tsugaru in Tohoku. The continued popularity of
min'yo is partly due to the nostalgia felt by urbanites for their home
towns and villages, and many Japanese not only listen to min'yo , but
are able to sing a song or two, particularly one from their home region.
Like many traditional musics, the form is tightly controlled by various
guilds, a system called iemoto . Long apprenticeships are the norm for
musicians, and family-based teaching systems guarantee something is
passed on to the next generation. Shamisen master and singer Kiyohide
Umewaka, whose father started a key guild in the 1950s, says the
dedication required to master the form means that there are few
professional players. His father taught top min'yo singer Sanae Asano
and the spellbinding young shamisen player Shin'ichi Kinoshita, the
latter having played a major part in the shin-min'yo (new min'yo ) wave
led by singer Ito Takio, well known for his passionate singing style and
willingness to experiment.
Traditional drumming from Sado island , where the Earth Festival (a
percussion-based event) is held annually, has now become famous
internationally. Ondekoza, the original group of drummers, and its off-shoot,
Kodo, are capable of playing very powerful, rootsy gigs with just the
various Japanese drums (from the big daiko to small hand-drums), but the
bands do often utilize other instruments.
One of the very best places to catch traditional music in action in
Japan is at a local festival, or matsuri . At Obon , an ancient Buddhist
festival to celebrate the ancestors , locals get down to a Bon odori (Bon
dance). Check out the music of Shang Shang Typhoon which incorporates
various kinds of festival music into its shows and even has its own
festival every year, held just outside Tokyo. Wherever you go, you'll be
dancing, and you'll be dragged up by the local granny if you try to sit
it out. Dances are often centred around a bamboo tower with a big drum
in the centre, moving to either tapes or live min'yo of classic Bon
dances. You may catch the mikoshi procession, where young men dressed in
what look like jockstraps struggle to carry a portable shrine. Such
festivals are all about music, cementing community bonds and having a
good time - Japan-style.
Developing modern styles
As Japan began the process of modernization under the Meiji Reformation
of 1868, there was already a large pool of traditional music - classical,
folk and urban - available for development or incorporation into newer
styles. Another influence came into the mix in the mid-nineteenth
century, with the arrival of Western military bands. These laid the
foundations for the Western music that followed, from classical to
popular genres like jazz and chanson.
Two short song forms - shoka and gunka - developed during the Meiji
period. Shoka are songs composed to introduce Western music and singing
to schools. Gunka are military songs with strong Japanese elements,
acting as a prototype for later Japanese-Western syntheses like enka .
Popular from the Sino-Japanese war to World War II - when Western forms
like jazz were banned - you can still hear these patriotic songs blaring
from the trucks of right-wing activists in Tokyo.
At the turn of the century, another immensely popular song form was
ryukoka ("songs that are popular") which developed from street
entertainers in the Osaka region, and was set to a shamisen backing.
Japan's first recording stars, Kumoemon Tochuken and Naramuru Yoshida,
were ryukoka performers and their throbbing vocal styles prefigured
important popular forms to come.
With Western culture - movies and music - now flooding Japan, local
musicians started to catch on. The Hatano Jazz Band were the first
Japanese to play jazz , following a trip to the USA in 1912. Tango,
foxtrot, rumba, Tin Pan Alley, blues and Hawaiian all followed. The
potential for a fusion between Japanese and Western music was most fully
realized by two composers, Nakayama Shimpei and Koga Masao , both of
whom were major figures in the development of Japanese popular songs.
Sometimes using the Japanese yonanuki pentatonic scale with Western
arrangements, Shimpei hit the bigtime with Kachusha no uta (Katherine's
Song), while Koga pioneered the use of single-line guitar accompaniment
(standard for many enka songs ) in the 1931 hit Sake wa Namida ka
Tameiki ka (Sake is a tear or a sigh). Koga also used the yuri
ornamentation from traditional music in this song.
The resultant style became known as kayokyoku , a catch-all term for
Japanese popular songs that originated in the 1930s but only came into
use after World War II. Roots bands like Shang Shang Typhoon that
emerged in the late 1980s use a similar approach to create songs from a
mixture of Japanese pop and traditional, Latin, reggae and Asian styles.
Postwar pop
After the famine and devastation that followed the end of World War II,
people turned for solace to songs like the influential 1945 hit Ringo No
Uta (The Apple Song), sung by Namiki Michiko and Kirishima Noburo.
Despite the arrival of more Western styles like R&B and boogie-woogie,
some artists emerged singing kayokyoku in a Japanese style. In 1949, at
the tender age of 12, Hibari Misora , the greatest popular singer of the
modern era, made her debut.
Hibari, a precocious child who could memorize long poems and mimic adult
singers, was versatile. Her voice could handle the natural voice singing
style or jigoe , as well as the wavering folk style or yuri . Her
powerful, sobbing kobushi vocal technique created a highly charged
atmosphere, but she was also talented enough to cover jazz, min'yo ,
Latin, chanson and torch songs in the thousand recordings she made
before her death at 52 in 1989. In many ways, she was Japan's most well-known,
and loved, popular cultural icon of the twentieth century: not only did
she appear in 160 films, she was also the undisputed queen of enka .
Meanwhile, as Hibari was starting her career, American songs were
spreading across Japan, helped by the Allied occupying forces. Japanese
composers like Ryuchi Hattori picked up on the trends with the shuffle-rhythm
inspired Tokyo Boogie Woogie , even managing a shamisen version. Other
styles like bluegrass, rockabilly, Hawaiian (a second boom), doowop, R&B
and jazz all developed quickly.
In the 1950s, Japanese Latin music was established, although its roots
were laid down at least twenty years previously. During the Fifties and
early Sixties, many Cuban-style bands like the Tokyo Cuban Boys were
formed; tango and Latin singer Fujisawa Ranko is still remembered for
her South American tours. Tango remains popular in Japan and there is
even an original Latin rhythm, the dodompa . The tradition has been kept
strong with the recent success of Orquesta de la Luz.
Kayokyoku gradually became associated with styles that used traditional
scales, like enka , while the more Western-sounding pop became known as
Japanese pops . This latter form was defined by songs like Sukiyaki and
by the many Western-style groups that developed in the 1960s, known as
Group Sounds. Japanese pops mirrored all the Western moves - Beatles
imitators, rock, folk-rock, folk and psychedelia were all flavour of the
day.
Enka - Japan's soul music
Enka has been described as the "nihonjin no kokoro", the soul of the
Japanese. It's about lost love, homesickness or simply drowning the
sorrows of a broken heart with sake. The songs feature fog or rain, a
smouldering cigarette that means loss, the sad, unbearable farewell at a
desolate port, somewhere far from home. This is the world of enka .
Enka (from enzetsu , meaning public speech, and ka , meaning a song) is
more than 100 years old, and, despite what some younger Japanese say, it
is still enormously popular in Japan. Originally it was a form of
political dissent, disseminated by song sheets, but it quickly changed
in the early twentieth century as it became the first style to truly
synthesize Western scales and Japanese modes. Nakayama Shimpei and Koga
Masaowere were the trailblazing composers. Koga's first hit in 1931,
Kage Wo Shitaite (Longing For Your Memory), remains a much-loved classic.
Enka seems to be everywhere in Japan. Special television programmes like
Enka no Hanamichi pump it out, and you'll hear it in restaurants and
bars And, of course, it received a major boost with the invention of
karaoke, which helped to spread the genre's popularity both with younger
Japanese and foreigners. The classic image is of enka queen Hibari
Misora decked out in a kimono, tears streaming down her face as she sobs
through Koga's Kanashi Sake (Sad Sake), with typically understated
backing and single-line guitar. Hibari had the nakibushi (crying melody)
technique and a stunning vibrato-like Kobushi which makes the listener's
hair stand on end.
When Hibari died in 1989, Harumi Miyako inherited her position as the
top singer, though she has retired at least once. She is famed for her
growling attack and the song Sayonara . Many enka stars have long
careers, and veterans like Kitajima Suburoare are still going strong,
but there's a new generation led by Mori Shin'ichi, Yashiro Aki,
Kobayashi Sachiko and the multi-talented Itsuki Hiroshi. Recently, a
number of upcoming Korean singers have been making waves (Hibari was of
Japanese/Korean ancestry). Watch out for Gill Jehee as the next big star.
No enka fan can pass up a visit to Rizumu (Rhythm), Kobayashi Kazuhiko's
ancient record shop in Ueno, Tokyo. Located under a railway arch in the
Ameyoko market, the brightly displayed shop is a treasure-trove of
memorabilia with music stacked floor to ceiling. Kobayashi-san, quick to
notice foreigners' growing interest, has even romanized the titles so
you can find that haunting enka number you can't get out of your head.
Japanese rock
By the late 1960s, musicians were starting to create Japanese-language
rock . Many pop bands at the time sang in English but some underground
groups tried splicing Japanese into the rock mix. Seminal band Happy End
were pioneers. Led by composer Haruomi Hosono and lyricist Matsumoto
Takashi, the band tried to mesh folk-rock with Japanese lyrics about
love and politics, and in the process inspired an entire generation of
rockers.
Rock blossomed as the Seventies advanced, forcing styles like enka to
move to a more middle-aged audience. A new generation was about to be
turned upside down by Kina Shoukichi , a little-known Okinawan rocker,
with his band Champluse (the name comes from the name of a traditional
Okinawan stir-fry). Kina , the son of legendary min'yo singer and
sanshin player Shouhei, combined Okinawan min'yo and rock on his song
Hai Sai Oji-san (Hello Uncle), which became so famous that it is used
today as a drill song for high-school baseball games.
The Asian rock sound, as defined by Champluse, was further developed by
bands like Carol, Harada Shinji and RC Succession. The Southern All
Stars , whose way of singing Japanese as if it were English helped them
to become Japan's biggest-selling band in the late 1980s, were another
influential group. This period also produced a wave of "alternative"
rock acts like Tama and Little Creatures, as well as Shonen Knife and
the Boredoms.
But the most successful international and domestic band of the 1980s has
to be Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), formed by Haruomi Hosono, Sakamoto
Ryuchi and Takahashi Yukihiro. Heavily influenced by German band
Kraftwerk and computer game ditties, YMO's brand of technopop inspired
many followers, notably The Plastics and Melon. Sakamoto went on to a
highly visible and successful international career, both as a soloist
and as an Oscar-winning film-score composer. Haruomi, certainly regarded
in Japan as a pioneer in searching for exotic sounds to incorporate into
his music, has been working in diverse fields - soundtracks, songwriting
for idol singers, music documentaries for TV and work with artists from
James Brown and Ry Cooder to Tunisian singer Amina Annabi. His massive
influence on the new roots generation in Japan cannot be underestimated.
What informs Haruomi's work - the search for an identity - is a major
preoccupation of roots bands like Shang Shang Typhoon and The Boom.
Haruomi became one of the first Japanese musicians to look south to the
islands of Okinawa for inspiration: in 1980 both Haruomi and Ry Cooder
performed on Kina Shoukichi's second, Okinawan-influenced album,
Bloodline . Recently he has been working with Bill Laswell, as well as
on albums with singers like Koshi Miharu and Moritaka Chisato.
Sandii and the Sunsetz were another band that savoured international
success in the 1980s. Led by powerful singer Sandii and
composer/producer Kubota Makoto, the band blended reggae and Okinawan
music into its mix. But shortly after the band split up, Kubota turned
his attention to producing Asian popular music, working with Indonesians
like Queen Elvy Sukaesih and Detty Kurnia, as well as Singaporean
comedian/singer Dick Lee. Kubota's most recent work has been with dance
star Monday Michiru, The Boom and, on his own label, Sushi, with the
Madagascan band Njava.Since her debut in 1980 ( Eating Pleasure , with
Hosono Haruomi), Sandii has moved easily across a broad range of styles.
Kubota's interest in creating "an Asian pop style for the 1990s" is in
strong evidence in Sandii's recent albums which feature the champur
-style dangdut dance form (with house and dance beats in the mix), lots
of Asia-Pacific and Brazilian songs and a voice that can carry anything
from torch songs to reggae and Japanese pop. Sandii has also returned to
her roots with three superb Hawaiian albums, the last of which features
American guitarist Bob Brozman. Wildly successful, the albums have
fuelled another boom in Hawaiian music.
The Roots Boom
The Japanese genius for assimilating foreign sounds into a new form is
well known, and the invasion of World Music has had a significant
effect. Reggae, for example, was considered "underground" for years, but
the rise of Japanese outfits like Jamaican-style toaster Rankin' Taxi
and ska band Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, playing at events like the
annual reggae fest Japansplash, has given the genre a mainstream
profile. Visits by Africans like Papa Wemba (whose global management is
located in Japan) have created local lingala ( soukous ) bands. Latin
music has also had a big effect, propelling the talented Orquesta de la
Luz to the top of the Billboard Latin chart in the early 1990s.
But the most significant development has been the rise of local roots
bands since the late 1980s, when bands like Shang Shang Typhoon (SST),
The Boom, and Okinawan artists and bands such as Rinkenband, Nenes,
Kina, Daiko Tetsuhiro and Amuro Namie broke onto the scene. Inspiration
came from both within Japan (Okinawa and local popular culture) and
outside (World Music).
The second coming of the Okinawans was heralded by frenetic sell-out
gigs of the Rinkenband in 1990, and a short time later by the ecstatic
comeback of Kina and Champluse (sometimes spelt Champloose). Okinawan
traditional music blended with bright pop caught everyone's attention.
Okinawans' relationship to mainstream Japanese culture could be compared
to the "Celtic" movement in Europe: they have a keen sense of their own
identity and, in an increasingly homogenized Japan, a lively folk
culture.
The Okinawan's method of taking their local traditions and updating them
with other forms of music has been reflected in a wave of new bands.
Soul Flower Union , led by Nakagawa Takahashi, blend acoustic guitars,
Okinawan and chindon (street) music, which advertises products or shops
with drums and saxophones. Nakagawa wrote the hit Mangetsu no Yube (A
Full Moon Evening) with Yamaguchi Hiroshi of The Heat for the victims of
the Kobe earthquake. Unfortunately, SFU's music was considered too
strange by its record company so the band released its own debut, Asyl
Ching-Dong , on its own label. It features prewar tunes, and is strongly
influenced by Okinawan master Daiku Tetsuhiro. SFU has several satellite
units that play in acoustic or more rock-influenced styles, and are
starting to get noticed overseas. Recent work has included gigs with
Irish musicians like Donal Lunny and Dolores Keane.
Another updated local form is kawachi ondo , an old narrative folk style
from the central Kansai region. Its rapid-fire, rap-like vocal delivery
is somewhat similar to Thailand and Laos' mor lam . Traditionally,
kawachi ono's wild men, dressed in colourful kimono, perform at local
bon odori (summer festivals) around the country. The leading modern
exponent, Kawachiya Kikusuimaru , burst onto the scene with a hit single
for a TV commercial about part-time workers (known as "freeters"). He
released several classy albums that included Indonesian, reggae and rock
elements. He has been quiet of late, releasing only a wonderful (but
long-deleted) collection of reggae covers - a tribute to Bob Marley
called Bob Marley Ondo 97 - that included a cover of I Shot The Sheriff
.
None of these bands, however, has had the pop chart success of The Boom
, one of the earliest roots bands, who have been on the go since the
mid-1980s. Led by Miyazawa Kazufumi , or Miya, the Boom started off as a
ska/two-tone band, but quickly moved onto other styles and incorporated
them into a heady brew. In 1993, they had the biggest-selling single in
the country (1.5 million copies) with Shima Uta (Island Songs). It used
an Okinawan melody and sanshin riffs, set to hard drums and rock guitar.
Considered a modern classic, the song garnered the Japanese equivalent
of the Grammy for Best Song.
Subsequently, the Boom moved into Indonesian music, giving it a similar
treatment. Brazilian and Latin featured on the albums Far East Samba and
Tropicalism . The latter disc saw the various elements from previous
albums blending and maturing, and the band is certain to progress and
achieve international prominence. Miya also has a blossoming solo
career. He writes for Sakamoto, Kina, Dick Lee and even reggae singer
Yami Bolo. In 1998 he released two albums, one in London, Sixteenth Moon
, and the other, Afrosick (as in "homesick"), in Brazil, alongside such
luminaries as Carlinos Brown.
If you want to hear some of these artists The Rough Guide to Japanese
Music CD (World Music Network, UK) is a fine introduction to the
Japanese music scene. It includes Soul Flower Mononoke Summit's Kobe
earthquake song and Kubota Makoto and his band playing Kina's classic
Hai Sai Oji-San , plus a strong Okinawan presence and classical and
traditional artists.
The sound of the deep, deep south
Be it at a min'yo performance in a small club or among the massed
troupes of the annual Eisa festival, you'll find graceful dancing,
haunting vocals, all kinds of drumming and stunning playing on the
three-stringed sanshin , in the islands of Okinawa .
Music has been integral to the island's culture and social life for
centuries; it's said that peasants carried their musical instruments
into the rice fields, ready for a jam session after work. The folk
tradition is very much alive, and in some villages umui (religious
songs) are still sung at festivals to honour ancestors. Work songs that
reflect communal agriculture techniques can still be heard, and various
kinds of group and circle dances, some performed exclusively by women,
can be found in the smaller islands.
Popular entertainment is known by the general term zatsu odori (common
dance), though everyone calls these songs shima uta (island songs). The
best-known style, one no wedding would be complete without, is called
katcharsee . Set to lively rhythms laid down by the sanshin , which
plays both melody and rhythm, and various drums, the dance is performed
with the upper body motionless and the lower body swaying sensuously,
accompanied by graceful hand movements that echo similar dances in
Thailand and Indonesia.
The Asian connection can be clearly seen in the history of the sanshin .
This three-stringed lute began life in China and was introduced to
Okinawa around 1392. Local materials were quickly exhausted so that Thai
snakeskin was used for the soundbox and Filipino hardwood for the neck.
Once introduced to mainland Japan, the sanshin became bigger, produced a
harder sound and was renamed the shamisen , one of the quintessential
Japanese instruments.
A more recent influence on Okinawan music has come via the US military
presence. Local musicians started to copy American pop styles in the
1950s, sometimes mixing in folk music. One major star whose music
developed in this way was Kina Shoukichi who formed the band Champluse
while still at high school, thus opening the way for a new generation of
Okinawan rockers, including ex-band members Nagama Takao , famous for
his fast-action sanshin playing, and Hirayasu Takashi .
Another contemporary Okinawan musician to watch out for is China Sadao ,
who records his own solo min'yo and brought the all-female group Nenes
to international fame. Nenes have played with Ry Cooder, Michael Nyman,
George Winston, among others, and recorded their most recent album with
Talvin Singh. China has a club, Shima Uta Live House , in Ginowan ,
which is one of the best places in the islands to see Okinawan roots
music. Other hot acts include Parsha Club , led by Ara Yukito, who mix
jazz funk, rock and dance with Okinawan min'yo , and the former child
prodigy Nakano Ritsuko (aka Rikki).
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