Billy Corgan began work on The Smashing Pumpkins MACHINA reissue yesterday, and Corgan revealed in Instagram posts that there were 100 song ideas from the sessions, and that he is considering recording new versions of 4 never before heard songs with James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin. He also said the plan is to ‘finish’ the album to have a version like the originally envisioned album in 2000, that was later split into two records.
Would you ever consider a Machina part 3 with the current lineup?
“So far I have found 4 songs that were never finished that I think it would be cool to record new versions with James and Jimmy.”
Will there be singles coming from the reissue?
“I could see a scenario where if we record new versions of unfinished songs one could be released as a single.”
Will the track listing change at all for Machina?
“Plan is to ‘finish’ the album as a conceptual work and properly sequence.”
“#MACHINA/// an afternoon of work, circa 1999, working on the song Raindrops + Sunshowers. Notes (seen in the far right column) were listed at the time, and come from whomever was the engineer that day or as designated by the producer. To put this data in context, this is for an as yet complete version or Sunshowers; as there were others (I think there were 3 to 4 different, distinct versions of this song alone). And over the course of the sessions, between rehearsals, demos, false starts, and songs we were rehearsing for the Arising tour, we covered some 60-70 songs and that doesn’t cover a riff idea or us joking around. Counting those puts the ideas total closer to 100 ‘songs’”
“#MACHINA A questioned I was asked a lot during last evenings q + a was, ‘What was the most surprising thing you’ve found thus far?’ A question I found hard to answer simply, so I chose not to. But reflecting further, I think I do have an answer now. In listening back to the DATs (Digitial Audio Tapes, our preferred all purpose way of documenting (cheaply) any manner of things during sessions) I noticed a clear breach; music made before the 1999’s Arising Tour, and after. The songs, and recordings, before, more conventional and linear; those made after disassembling into a more unfamiliar music that is in search of not so much a core sound as an aural disintegration. Now, I admit i was the main driver in this exercise, but listening to the song’s earliest incarnations, the contrast in approach becomes stark post-tour, as do the songs written thereafter. MACHINA itself not really being born until we’d toured, fallen apart in excess, and regrouped around the search for a proper funeral that never really came.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpTUv3mFH5I/?taken-by=williampcorgan
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpUVbnklEpx/?taken-by=williampcorgan
