Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Machina II’ Update Could Hit 80 Songs

Smashing Pumpkins are in a particularly prolific period, not only pushing forward with new music but going back and completing a vision from the 2000 Machina records that never was fully realized.

In a new chat with Radio.com (heard below), Billy Corgan offers an update on the Machina II revision. "It's being mastered now. The album reconstituted comes in at about 50-plus tracks and with the extra tracks I think with the whole project will be somewhere about in the 80 track range," explained the singer.

The original lineup of the group finished up their tenure in 2000 with Machina / The Machines of God, but the album's companion – Machina II / The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music – was a little harder to come by being offered as a free Internet download. Now, revisiting that period, Billy Corgan is keen on sharing a more complete version of the vision from that time.

"It was written to be kind of like a musical, but because it was never finished, it was like shooting a movie that wasn’t fully edited right,” said the singer. “Machina I was like one edit of the footage, and Machina II was some of the leftover footage – but there was even more stuff leftover. So, this was my attempt, 20 years later, to kind of finish the movie and in the process of trying to finish the movie, realizing the movie can never be finished because a lot of stuff wasn't finished."

He adds, "Some stuff I was able to finish and some stuff is unfinished that I present. It's almost like a sketch but in the aggregate of listening to it you kind of get the sense of the movie I was after."

Corgan also reveals that the record is very reflective of the band's own story at the time. "On the one hand you have a band that's breaking up and the band knows it's breaking up so there's this kind of sorrow that hangs over everything, but on the other hand we're highly productive," said the singer. "It's like notating a breakup or something. It's a very odd record and one that I don't know if I could ever make again if I tried but I'm glad it's there because now it will be presented in its best possible light."

Smashing Pumpkins released their Cyr double album last fall and Corgan has also discussed finishing a "rock opera" sequel to Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness that he views as the third installment of a trilogy.