With just one week to go before its release, the Smashing Pumpkins are firing up the anticipation machine by streaming their latest album, ‘Oceania,’ via iTunes. In addition, they have announced an intimate album release show in New York City.

Billy Corgan has never been one to cater to the record industry’s norms. After deciding to release an album within his already unconventional 44-song project ‘Teargarden by Kaleidyscope,’ the Pumpkins’ frontman made the unusual decision to withhold releasing a single or video for the project prior to its release. Corgan explains that his Pumpkins are “dead set on making an album where every song was just as valuable as any other, ignoring the typical claptrap you hear about needing a single. The only way to make the case that every song on ‘Oceania’ is worth hearing is to put your heart into the sequence as a cohesive whole.”

The album is set to hit digital retailers and stores everywhere on June 19, but can be streamed in its entirety on iTunes for the week leading up to its release. While early reviews of ‘Oceania’ indicate a stylistic return to the Pumpkins of yore, Corgan says, “I’ve been adamant in stressing that as a group, first and foremost, we are here to make new music together. I”m proud to say that on ‘Oceania’ I feel we’ve cut our own path forward. Jeff [Schroeder, guitar] , Mike [Byrne, drums] and Nicole [Fiorentino, bass] have all made significant contributions to the tone and texture of ‘Oceania,’ which is an album that is unlike any I’ve ever made. Yet at the same time I believe it upholds the same musical values I’ve always pushed for with The Pumpkins, be they progressive, emotional, epic, or restless.”

The band is also set to perform a small private show at the iHeartRadio Theater in New York City on the day of the album’s release. During that show, and likely a good amount of others, fans can expect to hear the new album performed front to back. “When we intersect with the fanbase, we have to reattach them to the idea of why we matter as an artistic unit,” Corgan tells Antiquiet. “So when people come to see the ‘Oceania’ tour, we’re going to play ‘Oceania,’ sixty minutes, as it was written.”

‘Oceania’ is the follow-up to 2007′s ‘Zeitgeist’ and marks the first full release under the Smashing Pumpkins moniker with Corgan as the sole original member.

 

 

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