News

The Smashing Pumpkins are revisiting the material that initially marked their final bow with a sprawling, unusual box set.

2000’s Machina/The Machines of God will be remastered and reissued on CD and double vinyl from UMe on August 22. Additionally, a new box set, Machina (Aranea Alba Editio), will offer a remixed and resequenced, 48-track quintuple-album drawing from Machina, its sequel Machina II/The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music and assorted B-sides, plus a further three LPs of 32 rarities and outtakes, with more than 30 tracks entirely unreleased. Now here’s where things get a little loopy: the box is only going to be released on 180-gram vinyl (in two editions – a standard black and a “hand-poured” metallic silver/black variant, limited to 3500 copies), and is only going to be available through Madame ZuZu’s, a Highland Park, IL tea shop owned by Smashing Pumpkins’ iconoclastic frontman Billy Corgan. (Happily, it’s not like you can only buy it at the store; online orders, including autographed copies, are now selling.) The box will feature redesigned artwork by Corgan and Katelan Foisy, including lyrics and additional material fleshing out the story of the album.

It’s an unusual release plan for an unusual series of albums, which brought the Smashing Pumpkins back to their roots and then closed the book on them entirely a quarter-century ago. Machina/The Machines of God was a back-to-basics, grunge-adjacent guitar album that followed the industrial and electronic-flavored Adore (1998). While the band’s classic line-up of Corgan, guitarist James Iha, bassist D’arcy Wretzky and returning drummer Jimmy Chamberlain were back (at least on record – Wretzky would permanently leave the group after a 1999 tour, with ex-Hole bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur replacing her), rock fans had mostly moved on to newer alternative sounds, and Machina wasn’t particularly helped by its muddled concept album status, either. (“I’m not even sure now what I was trying to do,” Corgan sheepishly admitted in 2010.) The band announced they would break up at year’s end. Virgin rejected a standalone follow-up intended to be part of Machina‘s double album track list. Instead, the band pressed about 25 copies of Machina II/The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music on vinyl themselves and gave to a select few friends and fans with instructions to disseminate vinyl rips freely on the Internet.

Corgan has been teasing a revisit to the Machina material for more than a decade, and while it is rather unusual that the album per his vision would remain on vinyl, it’s par for the course for the unpredictable musician, who reformed the band for 2007’s Zeitgeist (only Chamberlain briefly returned from the original line-up). After plenty of unusual and sometimes not fully realized projects in the ensuing years, The Smashing Pumpkins now exist as a reunited trio of Corgan, Chamberlain and Iha, who released the alt/prog-themed Aghori Mhori Mei in 2024.

You can pre-order both the remastered album and the box set at the links below; it’ll be out August 22. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Machina/The Machines of God (25th Anniversary Remastered Edition) (Virgin/UMe, 2025)

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

1. The Everlasting Gaze
2. Raindrops + Sunshowers
3. Stand Inside Your Love
4. I of the Mourning
5. The Sacred and Profane
6. Try, Try, Try
7. Heavy Metal Machine
8. This Time
9. The Imploding Voice
10. Glass and the Ghost Children
11. Wound
12. The Crying Tree of Mercury
13. Speed Kills (vinyl/digital bonus track)
14. Age of Innocence
15. With Every Light
16. Blue Skies Bring Tears

Machina (Aranea Alba Editio) (Virgin/UMe, 2025)

8LP / Madame ZuZu’s: Black / Black/Silver Hand-Poured (Standard / Autographed)

LP 1

Side A

1. Le Deux Machina
2. Stand Inside Your Love
3. I of the Mourning
4. God’s Promise *
5. The Crying Tree of Mercury

Side B

1. Slow Dawn
2. The Sacred and Profane
3. The Everlasting Gaze
4. Here’s to the Atom Bomb
5. Wound

LP 2

Side C

1. Glass’ Theme
2. Heavy Metal Machine
3. Blue Skies Wrought Tears
4. Pale Scales *
5. Vanity
6. Autumn *

Side D

1. “Machina, Machina” *
2. Raindrops + Sunshowers
3. Glass and the Ghost Children

LP 3

Side E

1. Real Love
2. The Imploding Voice
3. One Moment *
4. Speed Kills

Side F

1. Here’s to the Atom Bomb, Too
2. Try, Try, Try
3. Whyte Spyder *
4. Don’t Wanna Be Your Lover *
5. Cash Car Star

LP 4

Side G

1. Dross
2. Lucky 13
3. Hmm *
4. Without You
5. Winterlong

Side H

1. Laugh *
2. If There is a God
3. This Time
4. Blue Skies Bring Tears

LP 5

Side I

1. In My Body
2. Innosense
3. Try (Again)
4. Drain *
5. Yet Another Promise *
6. Home

Side J

1. With Every Light
2. Age of Innocence
3. Let Me Give the World to You
4. Soot + Stars
5. Machina Theme *

LP 6: Bonus Tracks

Side K

1. Untitled
2. Blue Skies Bring Tears (Early Version) *
3. Go (M2 Version)
4. Vanity (Sadlands Demo) *
5. Raindrops + Sunshowers (Band Demo) *

Side L

1. Soul Power (M2 Version)
2. Here I Am (Sadlands Demo) *
3. The Crying Tree *
4. Glass and the Ghost Children (Pumpkinland Demo) *
5. Age of Innocence (Acoustic Demo) *

LP 7: Bonus Tracks

Side M

1. Rock On
2. End of the Joke *
3. Stand Inside Your Love (Early Version) *
4. Home (Home Demo) *
5. Identify (Movie Demo) *

Side N

1. Rainy Day Song *
2. Lucky 13 (M2 Version)
3. Satur9 (M2 Version)
4. The Imploding Voice (Pumpkinland Demo) *
5. Without You (Sadlands Demo) *
6. Wound (Sadlands Demo) *

LP 8: Bonus Tracks

Side O

1. Speed Kills (Early Version)
2. Whyte Spyder (M2 Version)
3. Summer (Rehearsal) *
4. Let Me Give the World to You (Sadlands Demo) *
5. Heavy Metal Machine (M2 Version)

Side P

1. I of the Radio (Instrumental Demo) *
2. Sleeping Giant *
3. Attached by Satellites (Sadlands Demo) *
4. Glass’ Theme (M2 Demo)
5. Promise (NYC Demo) *
6. Fuck You (Live 12.02.00) *

Versions of Tracks A2-3, A5, B2-3, B5, C2, C3 (or H4), D2-3, E2, F2, H3 and J1-2 originally released as Machina/The Machines of God – Virgin 72438 48936 2 0, 2000
Versions of Tracks A1, B4, C1, C3 (or H4), E1, F5, G1, H2, I1-2, I6, J3, K3 and O2 originally released as Machina II/The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music – Constantinople Records CR-04, 2000
Versions of Tracks B1, C2, N3 and P4 released on Machina II EP #1 – Constantinople Records CR-01, 2000
Version of Track E4 (and possibly O1) released on vinyl and Japanese CD pressings of Machina/The Machines of God
Versions of Tracks F1, G5, J4 and M1 released on Judas O bonus disc with (Rotten Apples) Greatest Hits – Virgin 72438 11318 2 4, 2001
Versions of Tracks I3 and O5 released on Machina II EP #3 – Constantinople Records CR-03, 2000
Version of Track K1 released on (Rotten Apples) Greatest Hits – Virgin 72438 11316 2 6, 2001
Versions of Tracks L1, N2 and O1 released on Machina II EP #2 – Constantinople Records CR-02, 2000