Smashing Pumpkins release ‘Act II’ of new rock opera ‘ATUM’
Smashing Pumpkins have released ‘Act II’ of their new rock opera ‘ATUM’ – listen below.
In September last year the band announced the new three-part opera serving as a sequel to their classic double records ‘Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness’ (1995) and ‘Machina/The Machines Of God’ (2000).
‘Act I’ was then released in November and featured 11 songs including title track ‘ATUM’.
Now, the complete ‘Act I & II” collection of ‘ATUM’ is out, which can you listen to below.
Frontman Billy Corgan recently told NME about his ambitions for the 33-song project, explaining: “Because there’s a lot of people who believe less is more these days. I’m on the opposite side – I actually think more is more!”
The band first offered a taste of what to expect from the project in the shape of first single ‘Beguiled’, which does not appear until ‘Act II’.
Corgan also told NME that the track had emerged from around “80 ideas” that eventually turned into “a bunch of different demos; a riff here, a chord change, a little vocal melody”.
“And then you’d go through and say, ‘OK, these are the ones that are gonna work and seem to fit together,’” he recalled.
He continued: “With 33 songs, I was sort of Switzerland on the whole thing.”
“I really didn’t get too caught up in what everybody would want. And what was nice was that everybody seemed to want the same track. So if that represents the record for them, then great. But there’s so much music.”
Corgan admitted in November that his idea for a triple album was initially met with “a big shrug” from his bandmates.
The ‘ATUM’ trilogy will be completed upon the release of ‘Act III’ on April 21, which will arrive with a three-part boxset and 10 unreleased bonus tracks.
Elsewhere, last month Two Minutes To Late Night shared their latest cover performed by a one-off supergroup, uniting members of AFI, Deafheaven, Alexisonfire and more to put a hardcore spin on The Smashing Pumpkins’ 1995 hit ‘1979’.
Smashing Pumpkins, meanwhile, are set to headline a new festival in Mexico next month called The World Is A Vampire alongside Interpol.
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Hollie Geraghty
NME
