The Session Vol.1

The Session Vol.1 is a five-track CD that ASTERISM released on 15 November 2017 on JAPAN RECORD, a label of Tokuma Japan Communications, as TKCA-74564. The band now counts it as its first EP; when it came out, the label announced it as a "5 TRACKS ALBUM", and the chronology on the band's own website lists it as the band's major-label debut. It was played by HAL-CA on guitar, MIYU on bass and MIO on drums. The band grew out of The 8th Music Revolution, a music contest held by Yamaha in 2014: HAL-CA had entered the Fukuoka heat as a solo guitarist and MIO and MIYU the Saga heat as the unit O.G.I, and Yamaha staff who saw both heats approached the three separately. Two of the five tracks are originals, "155" and "Magic Bullet". The other three are covers, also played as instrumentals: Metallica's "Enter Sandman", Judas Priest's "RAM IT DOWN" and Ozzy Osbourne's "Bark at the Moon". In a 2019 interview HAL-CA explained that the band played many covers at its monthly shows at the Hard Rock Cafe in Fukuoka and put on record the ones that drew the strongest response. According to the label's profile of the band, Bootsy Collins had shared one of the band's videos on his own Facebook page and introduced the group there, after which their video of "155" passed 13 million plays. The label's website posted the music video for "155" on 13 November 2017, two days before the CD. The label presented the record as showing only half of what the band could do, a first glimpse, and said that the "real debut" would be complete once The Session Vol.2 joined it in January 2018; for that reason the single disc was packed in a case made for two. Vol.2 appeared on 24 January 2018; beforehand the band announced a mini concert and signing session at Canal City Hakata in Fukuoka on 20 January to mark both releases. HAL-CA later said that the band recorded its first full album, IGNITION, released in August 2018, in a very different way from the two volumes of The Session.