Sophia Michaels
Before the Smashing Pumpkins embark on their arena tour with Jane’s Addiction next week, the band appeared on The Tonight Show Friday to deliver the TV debut of their latest single “Beguiled.”
The track is the first off the band’s planned 33-track triple-LP Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts, an album billed as Billy Corgan’s sequel to 1995’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and 2000’s Machina/The Machine of God.
Corgan will premiere a new track from Atum (pronounced “Autumn”) every week for the next 33 weeks on his new podcast,Thirty-Three With William Patrick Corgan; the first two episodes, “Atum” and “Butterfly Suite,” arrived earlier this week.
Each of the 11-song acts will be released along with the podcast; Act 1 will be available on Nov. 15, Act 2 on Jan. 31, and Act 3 will complete the drama on April 21. That same day, the group will release a special edition box set containing 10 more, previously unreleased songs.
Prior to embarking on the arena trek, the semi-reunited Smashing Pumpkins — guitarist James Iha and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin included — played a pair of warm-up shows at Chicago’s Metro and New York’s Irving Plaza, with both shows featuring the debut of the Atum-bound “Empires” as well as “Beguiled.”
