Back in 2018, The Smashing Pumpkins promised to reissue their 2000 album Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music. Now, more than two years later, it appears the re-release is in the final stages of completion.
In a new interview with Radio.com (via NME), frontman Billy Corgan revealed that the project is done and currently in the process of being mastered. He said fans can expect it to contain at least 80 (!) tracks, many of which are leftovers from the band’s original recording sessions.
The Pumpkins put out Machina II as a free digital download in September 2000, just a few months after Machina/The Machines of God. The alt-rockers had planned on releasing both albums together at the same time in physical formats, but label Virgin Records refused to do so, citing poor sales of the group’s previous LP Adore.
With the new Machina II rework, the Smashing Pumpkins hope to finally release the album as they had originally intended. “[‘Machina II’] 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,” Corgan explained.
He added, “‘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.”
In addition to the Machina II reissue, Corgan & co. still intend on releasing a sequel concept album to both Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness and Machina. When announcing the sequel back in October, Corgan described it as a “rock opera” and said the band already had 33 tracks.
On top of all of these ongoing projects, the Pumpkins also dropped a new double album called CYR in November. Plus, he’s still working on that memoir.