Smashing Pumpkins Go Free With 44-Track Teargarden By Kaleidyscope

The Smashing Pumpkins are set to unleash a free 44-track (!) album dubbed Teargarden By Kaleidyscope (we're not kidding — that's really the title), which will come out as a series of EPs over the next few months.

Frontman Billy Corgan revealed the news in a blog post on the Smashing Pumpkins website on Wednesday. Four of the disc's songs are still being recorded, and Corgan says he wants to release one song at a time around Hallowe'en.

"Each song will be made available absolutely for free, to anyone anywhere. There will be no strings attached," he wrote.

Eleven "highly limited edition EPs" that will consist of four songs each will also be available, and Corgan says he wants the EPs to be "more like collectors items for the discerning fan who will want the art itself, along with the highest possible audio quality available."

Teargarden By Kaleidyscope will be available as a deluxe box set after the album is finished. Corgan says the album is based on The Fool's Journey, a Tarot metaphor. (This might partially explain his creation of that spiritual website last week.)

"It is my intention to approach this by breaking down the journey of our life here into four phases as made by these different characters: the Child, the Fool, the Skeptic, and the Mystic," Corgan wrote.

Teargarden By Kaleidyscope will be the first Smashing Pumpkins album released since the departure of longtime drummer Jimmy Chamberlin and the band's first release with new 19-year-old drummer Mike Byrne.

Corgan said last year he never wanted to release another Pumpkins album and the band would only release singles in the future.