ATUM

ATUM (pronounced like "Autumn" ), or ATUM: A Rock Opera in Three Acts, is the twelfth studio album and third concept album by The Smashing Pumpkins. It features 33 songs that form a three-act rock opera that is the sequel to 1995's Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and 2000's Machina/The Machines of God. The album was announced on September 19, 2022 via Madame ZuZu's newsletter.

The album was released in three separate installments of 11 songs—ATUM: Act I was released on November 15, 2022, ATUM: Act II was released on January 31, 2023, and ATUM: Act III was released on May 5, 2023. A physical box set consisting of all 33 songs, along with a group of 10 additional exclusive songs, was also released on May 5, 2023. The 10 additional songs are what the band had originally recorded as the third volume of the Shiny and Oh So Bright series, entitled Zodion At Crystal Hall.

Background
Billy Corgan first announced his plans to release a "sequel" concept album to Mellon Collie (1995) and Machina (2000) in October 2020, shortly prior to the release of the band's eleventh studio album CYR in November 2020. Corgan had wanted to do it as early as 2017 or 2018, but with everything going on with the band at the time, including guitarist James Iha being back in the band for the first time in 18 years, and plotting a large tour around 3/4 of the original band being together again, he instead opted on the less-ambitions 8 song album Shiny and Oh So Bright (2018). When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out years later and cancelled much of the bands planned touring, Corgan found himself with a lot of time on his hands and decided to revisit the concept. The album was recorded over a span of 2 years, some of it concurrently with CYR.

Concept and structure
ATUM is a concept album that Corgan describes as a sequel to the band's albums Mellon Collie and Machina. The album tells the story of the same character followed in the prior two albums ("Zero" and "Glass", respectively), with the character now being much older than portrayed in the prior albums, and now known as "Shiny". Similar to the prior albums, the story is described by Corgan as having "...one foot in reality and one foot in a made up world... It’s based on a lot of autobiographical things. But there’s lots of things that are things I'm just interested in exploring that don’t necessarily have anything to do with me."

ATUM was released in three acts, each consisting of 11 songs. Each act was scheduled to be released 11 weeks after the prior with Act III being released on April 21, but the final act was ultimately pushed back to May 5. Concurrent to the release of Act III, a physical box set containing all 33 songs, and an additional 10 extra songs, was released. The release schedule was designed by Corgan to help listener pace themselves in digesting the large body of work. The 10 songs exclusive to the box set were recorded prior to the album's songs, and is what Corgan described as a psychedelic rock record that was originally intended to be the third volume of the Shiny and Oh So Bright series entitled Zodion At Crystal Hall, with volume 2 being what became CYR.

Characters

 * Shiny – also known as Zero and Glass, now in his 70s. He is a former artist of great fame, before being exiled to space due to his perceived danger to society.
 * June – passionate life-long admirer of Shiny who is about "one generation" younger than him. Through illicit bribery she has exiled herself into space so that she can be closer to Shiny.
 * The Seraphim – a choir of Greek celestial angels.
 * Osirah – a non-binary, socially aware teen who is part of a hacker group known as 'Hopus Dei'.
 * Nighthawk – a young man and Osirah's closest comrade in 'Hopus Dei'.
 * Dr. Aesh – a legendary hacker and 60s-esque hippie psychonaut.
 * The Night Watchman – the only security guard at a long-abandoned amusement park called 'Dream Dream'.
 * Ruby – the lead dancing robot at Dream Dream's show pavilion, depicted as a 1930s sassy showgirl.
 * The X+I (pronounced "X and I") – the government authority that oversees all dissonant activity.

Sound
Contrary to CYR's electronic and guitar-light sound, Corgan described ATUM as more guitar-driven in its sound. He describes the sound as going "into a million different directions", noting that around a third of the album is "heavy", a third of it sounds "kind of more similar to what [the band has] been doing recently", and a third of it sounds more "esoteric" in advancing the concept/musical aspects of the album.

Release and promotion
The album's title and three part release structure was announced on September 19, 2022. The album's first single, "Beguiled", was released the following day. Corgan also conducted a weekly podcast called Thirty-Three, where he played and dissected a new song from ATUM each week prior to release. ATUM: Act I was released on November 15, 2022, ATUM: Act II was released on January 31, 2023, and ATUM: Act III was released on May 5, 2023. A physical box-set, consisting of all 33 songs, along with a group of 10 additional exclusive songs, was also released on May 5, 2023, pushed back from the original date of April 21. Pre-orders for the box set went on sale on Madame Zuzu's website on September 19, 2022, with two options: the black vinyl edition, and the autographed "milky way gray" vinyl edition. Both are machine-numbered, include four LPs, five 7" records of exclusive songs, a special audio story of "Act I/Atum", and a complete lyric book and story narrative. Units started shipping in May 2023, with no online streaming of the exclusive songs until "at least winter of 2023."

The ten additional songs, which will be spread across five 7-inch singles, were revealed in the fourth episode of Corgan's Thirty-Three podcast to be the shelved Shiny and Oh So Bright Vol. 3 album. In the final episode of the podcast, "Of Wings", Corgan revealed the title for volume three is Zodion At Crystal Hall and that six of the bonus songs are from the true album, which is eleven songs total, with the other four being B-sides.

The band embarked on the Spirits On Fire tour of North America with Jane's Addiction and Poppy leading up to the album's first release, with Our Lady Peace filling in on select Canadian dates for Jane's Addiction, and Meg Myers doing the same for Poppy on two of the US dates. On March 28, 2023 "Spellbinding" was released on streaming as the album's second single. It was also used in the end credits for the Netflix movie Murder Mystery 2 on Netflix. On the same day that "Spellbinding" was released, the band also announced a summer North American tour entitled The World Is A Vampire tour. Consisting of amphitheaters and a couple smaller indoor theaters, the band will continue to promote ATUM while having support from Stone Temple Pilots, Interpol, and Rival Sons. This comes after the festivals of the same name that took place in Mexico City and in eight Australian cities.

On April 13, 2023, the music video for "Empires" was released, showing performance footage from the Spirits on Fire tour. It was directed by Kevin Kerslake whom also directed the music video for "Cherub Rock". On May 6, 2023, the band released a trailer for an apparent ATUM film, also directed by Kerslake.

Artwork

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