A Moon Shaped Pool
| Radiohead
A Moon Shaped Pool
A Moon Shaped Pool is the ninth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead. It was released digitally on 8 May 2016, with CD and vinyl releases in June 2016 through XL Recordings. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
Radiohead move beyond the existential angst that made them music’s preeminent doomsayers, pursuing a more personal—and eternal—form of enlightenment.
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Rolling Stone
Radiohead give us one of their most musically and emotionally arresting albums, full of low-flying panic attacks and gorgeous orchestration.
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NPR
Listening to the new Radiohead album, it's easy to think there's no logical explanation for how a band 30 years deep into its career could continue to make music pulsing with this much life, that still delivers wave after wave of sonic adventure and leads the mind into kaleidoscopic worlds.
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New York Times
Patient perfectionism.
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SPIN
One of the band’s finest hours.
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Consequence of Sound
The last five years humanized Radiohead in a way unheard on previous records.
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The Guardian
Radiohead have always sounded like a band in constant motion: every album has seemed like an agitated shift from the last.
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The Line of Best Fit
Radiohead excavate their most vital release in at least 15 years.
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The Atlantic
The band’s beautiful but difficult ninth album is as much sculpture as it is a song collection.
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The Verge
Radiohead's new album A Moon Shaped Pool turns anxiety into generosity.
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Resident Advisor
Following shaky albums from both Yorke and Radiohead, A Moon Shaped Pool suggests that they were right to keep the faith.
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Independent
Pleasure and despair as band let themselves be beautiful again.
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Clash Music
Deliberate isolation set against warm emotion.
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Crack Magazine
Radiohead are lost in their own wonderful world of sonics while things tumble around them, and this juxtaposition has made for a record that leaves A Moon Shaped Pool sat alongside some of their finest work. They’ve never felt closer.
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Vulture
Radiohead’s Shtick Resonates Anew in the Trump Era With A Moon Shaped Pool.
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DIY Mag
After years doing their own thing, it’s as if the members of Radiohead have locked limbs once more for a bigger cause.
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Alt Rock Chick
Use the opportunity provided by A Moon Shaped Pool to expand heart and soul to encompass aspects of human experience that are often trivialized by daily existence.
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Diffuser
A Moon Shaped Pool finally feels like a Radiohead album that doesn't antagonistically delay gratification or require repeated listenings to fully appreciate.
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KRUI.fm
This album would have been amazing if it was by a band that wasn’t Radiohead.
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Post Trash
Pool fits nicely at this point in Radiohead’s catalog and will deservedly be mentioned by many as among their favorites at the end of the year.
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The Skinny
It’s the soundtrack to our most outlandish dreams, perhaps the exit music to the unmade film of our most romantic lives. If you're still to discover Radiohead, listen to this, for it's the perfect way in.
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All Music
Radiohead are recognizably the same band that made that pioneering piece of electronica-rock but they're older and wiser on A Moon Shaped Pool, deciding not to push at the borders of their sound but rather settle into the territory they've marked as their own.
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The Quietus
A wheeze of defeat, but the credits can’t run yet. Perhaps they should.
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XS Noize
I have gone back and forth on the grade, but in the end it is deserves a rating as perfect as it is
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Drowned in Sound
There are things I wish were different about it, a couple of songs that don’t really stick in the head, but ultimately it's Radiohead being beautifully, maddeningly Radiohead, and I'm not going to argue with that.
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Entertainment
More than anything else, this album is a reminder that whether you're a disciple or not, there really is no other band quite like Radiohead.
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Daily Emerald
‘A Moon Shaped Pool’ is Radiohead at its most intimate.
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Louder than War
They have taken many twists and turns throughout their career and with A Moon Shaped Pool the band have arrived at a glorious destination.
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Entertainment Weekly
Yorke wonders, “Have you had enough of me?” Nine albums in, the answer’s a resounding “no.”
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USA Today
We're happy to report that the brooding, symphonic and poignant A Moon Shaped Pool, released Sunday, was well worth the wait, and is guaranteed to sound even more spectacular at the band's summer shows.
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Albumism
Exquisitely crafted songs.
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Radio 1190
It is both simple and complex, disarming and inviting, large and small. It is Radiohead, and they know where you live.
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Wall Street Journal
On its ninth studio album, Radiohead makes the experimental accessible while challenging the definition of popular music in 2016.
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Pretty Much Amazing
A Moon Shaped Pool is their most emotionally mighty LP yet. And their finest since Kid
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KEXP
Radiohead have once again taken on our western world with a masterpiece, pointing fingers where necessary, and embodying 21st century anxiety like no other band has accomplished.
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Gigwise
Not that they have anything left to prove, but A Moon Shaped Pool is proof that they still have so much give.
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Music OMH
It’s a record that you can delve deep into and really inhabit; everything’s in its right place.
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Time
Radiohead's A Moon-Shaped Pool Is Gloomy, Anxious and Gorgeous.
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NOW Toronto
Radiohead is as Radiohead does – what more could we ask of them?
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Student Edge
A Moon Shaped Pool took its time to arrive, but it carried no weight of obligation. It’s here for a reason, and listeners can enjoy picking apart its meaning from the audacious instrumentation for years to come, or, until Radiohead's next record.
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Vice
Against all odds, album number nine is a stunner.
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Audioxide
A Moon Shaped Pool is a daunting experience that revels in its sorrow.
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Audioxide
There’s a sense that the attic is being emptied, and old wooden furniture painted a brilliant white.
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Audioxide
A Moon Shaped Pool brings something different to the table that fans haven’t seen before, pulling back from the robotic electronica of The King of Limbs and softening the heavier sounds of early releases like The Bends.
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The Young Folks
An engrossing, near-cinematic experience to lose yourself in through the comfort of your headphones.
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Newsweek
RADIOHEAD’S 'A MOON SHAPED POOL' IS A BROODING TRIUMPH.
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Paste Magazine
Radiohead have resumed the greatest winning streak in modern popular music. Not by flaunting any new tricks—just by delivering their normal quota of catharsis.
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Bearded Gentleman Music
A Moon Shaped Pool confirms Radiohead does in fact, still have it in them.
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Chicago Tribune
Tiny details and big orchestrations.
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J.S. Online
Radiohead’s “A Moon Shaped Pool” a contemplative masterpiece.
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Niner Times
Radiohead has managed to once again redefined what their sound can be.
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L.A. Times
Radiohead looks to the organic on the engrossing 'A Moon Shaped Pool'.
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Edmonton Journal
You'll want to listen to it in an arena — lying on the floor, in the dark, by yourself.
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Method Sun Sound
It’s all meant to sound plaintive and self-reflexive, but really it just comes across as dreary nihilism.
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Audiophilia
When genius and natural talent meets skill, great things can happen in pop music. Highly recommended.
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Independent
It's delicate and gossamer gauzy, a wispy fade out to a deft, measured record sure to find favour with Radiohead fanboys and passings admirers alike.
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Under the Radar
For a band that has so consistently reinvented itself and refused to look backwards, this is perhaps one of the more optimistic endings possible.
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The Interns
A Moon Shaped Pool deserves more than a throwaway listen or a shotgun review.
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Behind the Hype
There is much to be had and enjoyed here on A Moon Shaped Pool.
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Ranting about Music!
The diehards have their newest masterpiece, and I have an album I kinda love but kinda think is overrated. For Radiohead, this puts everything in its right place.
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Louder Sound
Sporadically great but decidedly patchy.
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The AU Review
They’re not the messiah – they’re just a very good band, and we should all be content to sit back and enjoy.
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Esquire
You Should Really Find Time for the New Radiohead Album This Week.
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The National
A Moon Shaped Pool finds Radiohead at their most bruised and affecting.
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Medium
Ultimately what we are left with is a low key, but very fine collection of songs - perhaps the most focused the band has produced since Kid A, and an album that suggests a direction worth following further in Radiohead’s next act.
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The West Review
I’ve got to say, it was certainly worth the hype.
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Irish Examiner
This is a record that surrenders its mysteries slowly and it may be some time before the true measure of its worth is clear.
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Exepose
Radiohead have released their ninth studio album and it’s a reminder of why they are one of the best British bands in existence. Nay, ever.
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Immortal Reviews
The austere beauty of this album is something almost beyond comprehension.
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S.F. Gate
Radiohead’s most cohesive release in recent memory, stylistically and thematically.
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Las Vegas Weekly
It’s a testament to the dense music that it also beckons listeners to shut out distractions, unplug from the chaos of everyday life and listen very, very closely.
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Colourless Opinions
A Moon Shaped Pool takes listeners to dark, beautiful places of melancholia.
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Daily Review
Here it is resplendent in an ethereal haunting minimalist piano-led setting and it takes its rightful place among the pantheon of the group’s finest ballads.
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No More Workhorse
It’s definitely not the album to “save rock and roll” but it’s a more musical and serene album than anybody really expected. It’s way better than The King of Limbs, that’s for sure.
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Music Factory Number One
Overall, this mix of the personal and political make this album wonderfully rich and relatable for those willing to give it the time it deserves.
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Mashable
On parts of this richly beautiful, meticulously orchestral album — backed by the London Contemporary Orchestra on many tracks— it's hard not to be persuaded.
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Tiny Mix Tapes
Crawling with life.
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Stanford Daily
Radiohead returns with another anxious and mournful masterwork.
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AAA Backstage
'A Moon Shaped Pool’ is incredible.
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Dancing Astronaut
It’s a complex work that demands careful reconsideration.
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Dead End Follies
It's music I can process and incorporate to moments of my life and that's what that music thing is all about for me.
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Writer's Bone
Considering its long gestation, it’s arguably the crowning moment of Radiohead’s career, and closes out what may be the most affecting album you hear all year.
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Sound Review
I wouldn’t say it’s an immediately arresting listen but it has a certain way of drawing you in and stands up very well to repeat listens.
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The Student Playlist
A Moon Shaped Pool has been anywhere from 21 years to a few months in the making, but it was worth it.
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Vulture Hound
A Moon Shaped Pool has a truly classic persona.
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star2
This is a classic Radiohead album, one that sees the band digging into its past while constantly pushing the envelope and making sure its music moves on to the next logical evolution.
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Mind Equals Blown
This was certainly worth the wait.
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Wired
Moon is a fantastic-sounding, strife-affirming document of 21st-century unease, and the sound of a decades-running band still at peak power.
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Acid Stag
Adding a new dimension to the band’s repertoire with heavily thematic, acoustic folk-influenced and beautifully orchestrated music, the final note is one that leaves listeners reeling, a goodbye that we all know all too well.
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Belwood Music
It ranks amongst their best work and has given me a greater appreciation of one of the most consistently brilliant bands around.
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The Current
It's an amazing album from one of rock's greatest bands.
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Standard
The most left-field stadium act in the world return with more extraordinary music.
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Spectrum Pulse
So as a whole... look, there are some beautiful moments here, but this record felt underwritten, underwhelming, and unsatisfying as a whole.
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Luddite Stereo
A Moon Shaped Pool is Radiohead come full circle.
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We Plug Good Music
Radiohead have not lost the human quality of their music, despite their insatiable desire to make idiosyncratic, complex records
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Project Revolver
A Moon Shaped Pool takes you on a hypnotic yet very bumpy journey that has actually started in 1995, when the band first performed True Love Waits.
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List
Radiohead's ninth album is an essential piece of work with resonantly beautiful songs.
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Words for Reveries
I feel In Rainbows is their best, but this would definitely come a close second.
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13th Floor
More listening is required, but at this point I’m looking forward to it, and that hasn’t always been the case with some of their previous work.
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Nouse
Radiohead's electronic-infused ninth album demonstrates that the alt-rockers remain as interesting as ever.
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Forge Press
A Moon Shaped Pool should be regarded as highly as In Rainbows and OK Computer within Radiohead’s back catalogue. It’s been well worth the wait.
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Fuse
An enthralling way to kick off Radiohead’s next era.
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Transverso Media
A Moon Shaped Pool offers: impressionistic whirs of pain and restraint, and a heart-hollowing sense of loss.
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Tampa Bay
Radiohead surprises us all with 'A Moon Shaped Pool,' an album of lush, human beauty.
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Spin or Bin Music
Radiohead Wrenches Your Heart Out With The Highly-Anticipated 'A Moon Shaped Pool'.
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WIUX
Subtle and probably their most nuanced to date.
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Rock Nuts
While half of the songs on this album have been teased in one form or another, it’s their reworking and relation to our/their current situation that helps push this album to the top.
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Voice Mag
These musical masterminds have come a long way from their alt-rock roots, and they fail to disappoint with one of the most anticipated albums of 2016.
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S.A. Music Scene
This album is a very human album, instead of reinventing themselves, they’ve almost taken the best of what is Radiohead and made something beautiful.
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Backseat Mafia
Radiohead's ninth studio album sees the band as strong as ever with this beautifully cinematic release. A must have for fans and newcomers alike.
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Marcel's Music Journal
A Moon Shaped Pool – a devastatingly empty listening experience that makes me yearn for the simpler days of Brantford, drugs, and crime… ALLLLLLLLLLLLL OVER AGAIN.
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Soundblab
Sparkling.
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Contact Music
Essential.
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Richer Sounds
This album is highly recommended and gives the band a triumphant validation that can hopefully propel them onto a new classic period, and hopefully a less than five year wait for the next one.
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Alt Music Box
This album is something very, very special indeed, and absolutely not to be missed.
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Headstuff
A Moon Shaped Pool should go down as Radiohead’s fourth/fifth masterpiece. An arresting experience.
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Scotsman
Much to luxuriate in.
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UCSD Guardian
“A Moon Shaped Pool” is not just another wildly innovative album by Radiohead; it is the culmination of over two decades of music and the emergence of a fresh, unapologetic sound that the British rock band is sure to build on in years to come.
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