August-September 1997 – Chicago Trax Recording

The August-September 1997 sessions were the first proper recording sessions for Adore. After scrapping the idea of a live-in-the-studio album, Billy Corgan chose to make an acoustic/electronic hybrid record intended to be co-produced by Brad Wood and tracked in a different recording studio every week. Although Corgan deemed these initial sessions a failure, the album versions of "To Shiela", "Ava Adore", "Behold! The Night Mare", "Blank Page", "Daphne Descends" and "Tear" all hail from these sessions (albeit with overdubs later in Los Angeles).

I thought I was going to do this really different album. So typical me, I didn't use any of my gear. Like, any. I went out and bought new guitars and strange amps—a Fender Blackface and a Selmer combo, I think. Most of my memories with Adore have more to do with programming.

Background
The success of "Eye", an industrial hip-hop crossover track that appeared on the soundtrack to David Lynch's Lost Highway instilled a much-needed confidence in Corgan. It was basic electronic production, but it proved to him that he could press on with more sophisticated fare. Corgan hooked up with Brad Wood (Liz Phair, Placebo) and began recording with the band in Chicago during the summer of 1997. It began as a solo album initiative but quickly expanded as a Smashing Pumpkins effort. Never one to do anything the easy way, Corgan decided to load into a new studio nearly every week. It was catch-as-catch-can recording. If something wasn't working in a new surrounding or couldn't get set up in time, it wasn't used.

"He was trying to create a different environment, quickly and geographically, and trying to avoid certain things that happen when a band settles into a studio," says Bjorn Thorsrud, who had engineered every Pumpkins record leading up to Adore.

Sessions initially began with both Corgan and Wood, but after much experimentation the magic simply wasn't showing and Wood parted ways. "It was a total crap shoot," Corgan told Electronic Musician, who soon afterwards relocated to L.A. to refocus his energy. "I was out of depth. There was no process, there was no system, and there was no go-to piece of gear. There was nothing. I learned a tremendous amount, but I couldn't tell you what the hell I did."

Production and engineering
Recording happened on both digital and analog formats. Corgan used ReCycle drum looping software, having already been familiar with Studio Vision Pro for MIDI and audio editing. In addition, a Kurzweil K2500 and a Alesis HR-16 (which was used on "1979") were used for rhythmic sequencing. Brad Wood's classic EMS VCS3 "Putney" can be heard prominently on "Ava Adore". Just as with 1995's Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, the band strived for experimentation. Every day new vintage synths, audio samples, and rack modules would be delivered to the studio.