Smashing Pumpkins are recording 33-song sequel to 'MCIS' and 'Machina'

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness turned 25 in October, and to celebrate the occasion Smashing Pumpkins revealed they were working on a 33-song album to complete the conceptual trilogy that began with MCIS and Machina. On Tuesday (March 2), Billy Corgan gave fans an update, saying the band's entered the studio to begin the recording process.

“Starting new SP album today, the 33 song sequel to MCIS and Machina," he wrote on Instagram. "Songs are written, lyrics too…so now it’s just record-record-record.”

In addition to the new collection of songs, Smashing Pumpkins are also planning a MCIS 25th anniversary tour when it's safe for live music to return.

See the album update post below.

In addition to this album and the recently released CYR, Smashing Pumpkins are also planning to re-release Machina II the way it was originally intended, with the project clocking in “somewhere in the 80-track range.”

“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. “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.”

He went on to explain that some tracks "are unfinished, almost like a sketch. But in the aggregate of listening to it, you kinda get a sense of the movie I was after. It’s pretty wild. It’s almost impossible to put into words."

This article was first published on iheart.com and is republished here with permission