GUERNICA+a

GUERNICA+a is ASTERISM's second full album, released by Amuse on 15 September 2021. The edition sold in shops nationwide is a CD in a paper sleeve, catalogue number ASCU-6111, priced at 2,500 yen including tax. It takes the six songs of the third EP, GUERNICA, which had come out only digitally in December 2020, and adds four previously unreleased ones, "STARS", "THEN&NOW", "FULL THROTTLE" and "Museum of Death"; the new songs come first, followed by the six from GUERNICA in their original order. The CD was made in response to fans' requests, and all ten tracks were remastered. A ten-track digital edition was released the same day. The trio was HAL-CA on guitar, MIYU on bass and MIO on drums. According to the credits, every song was written and arranged by ASTERISM. The four new songs were recorded and mixed by Seiji Toda at ACRO.POLIS and the six from GUERNICA by Daichi Tokunaga at Ongakudo PLUM, and Takiguchi"Tucky"Hirotatsu mastered the album. The concept is again Pablo Picasso's painting Guernica, and MIO drew the white sleeve. Ahead of the release, "STARS" and "THEN&NOW" were issued in July 2021, followed on 6 August by "FULL THROTTLE" and "Museum of Death" on Bandcamp. Amuse's online shop, A!SMART, also sold a limited set of the paper-sleeve CD with a T-shirt (ASCU6112, 5,000 yen including tax). To mark the release, the band played its first solo concerts, billed as "GUERNICA+a" Release Tour 2021 ~Exhibition~: on 24 September at The Voodoo Lounge in Fukuoka and on 27 September at Shimokitazawa LIVEHOLIC in Tokyo, the band's first Tokyo show in about two years, which sold out. From that stage HAL-CA said that the pandemic had made concerts and songwriting difficult, but had also given the three of them time to talk through what they really wanted to do as a band. In April 2022 ASTERISM moved its base from Fukuoka to Tokyo.