i of the mourning

TheFutureEmbraceby BillyCorgan

Walking Shadebilly corgan, TheFutureEmbrace


Billy Corgan: The Future Embrace (2005)Nifty songlets, trippy visuals, heavy-duty narration--Billy jumpstarts the rock opera with one fell swoop. Well, actually there are a number of swoops in this soaring 18-minute collage/montage of rock and electronica, techno-gizmo fascination and Victorian wonder. It's a distillation of his new solo disk and a thing unto itself. And did we mention that Billy's superhottie queen bee is back?

Today is a special day in my life as it marks the release of my very first solo album 'TheFutureEmbrace.' For over 17 years I have been proud to represent Chicago as an artist through my words and music, and am continually humbled by the undying love that I have been shown from this city as one of its native sons. I'd like to take this moment to address all that is going on in my musical life, from the new album and the current tour, to the future of The Smashing Pumpkins.

I had the opportunity to record 'TheFutureEmbrace' CD here in Chicago, and its embers bear witness to this town's unique soul. I have done my very best to create something fresh and exciting to listen to, and hope you get the chance to check it out. Having just returned from a tour of Europe, I am now set to play 18 additional dates in North America, beginning tomorrow in Atlanta. After that we head to Japan, and then Australia and New Zealand for the first time since 1998.

'TheFutureEmbrace' is an album of hope, and represents fully my desire to make music to stand and to fight for. Encouraged by the musical progress of the record, I have already begun writing new songs for a subsequent solo album I hope to start by the end of this year. Plans are still in the works to finish my 'ChicagoSongs' DVD, a group of songs about the city. I'm also in the progress of writing my life story on-line, updated almost daily and not so ironically entitled 'The Confessions of Billy Corgan.' It truly has been a creative time for me, with many new revelations.

Many have assumed that the decisions that I have made over the last few years have been to try to get away from something. But what I have been really trying to do is find that same kid again, the one who believed he could change the world with a song. There is an old saying that goes "you can't go home again," but I believe that your home is wherever your heart lies.

When I played the final Smashing Pumpkins show on the night of December 2, 2000, I walked off the Metro stage believing that I was forever leaving a piece of my life behind. I naively tried to start a new band, but found that my heart wasn't in it. I moved away to pursue a love that I once had but got lost. So I moved back home to heal what was broken in me, and to my surprise I found what I was looking for. I found that my heart is in Chicago, and that my heart is in The Smashing Pumpkins.

For a year now I have walked around with secret, a secret I chose to keep. But now I want you to be among the first to know that I have made plans to renew and revive The Smashing Pumpkins. I want my band back, and my songs, and my dreams. In this desire I feel I have come home again.

'TheFutureEmbrace' represents a new beginning, not an ending. It picks up the thread of the as-yet-unfinished work and charter of The Smashing Pumpkins. I know this city gave me the gift of my music, and it is my honor to share this love that I have with you from the bottom of my heart. There is still so much work to do, and as always, so little time!

Rock on and may God bless you!
Billy Corgan

BillyCorgan.com
SmashingPumpkins.com
mySpace.com/BillyCorgan

"Anyone who polarises opinion to the degree that Corgan manages is worth a listen and on 'TheFutureEmbrace' the case is made convincingly. Commercial and uncommercial, this features some of the finest songs ('All Things Change', 'Walking Shade') Corgan has penned for years. It's an album that deserves to be heard: the work of a man who has managed to grow and to avoid the categorisations that have haunted others of the grunge generation." -- Ian Winwood, NME

"This is the record Corgan should have written after the demise of the Pumpkins... an extensively layered wash of contoured, majestic, paranoid and strangely beautiful sound -- dense and claustrophobic in construction but not in scope." -- Tom Bryant, Kerrang

"[TheFutureEmbrace] is cloaked in reverb and flange, a bit industrial and compressed like a smashed aluminum can, blown up again with studio fireworks..." -- Julianne Shepherd, Pitchforkmedia

"An often bracing extension of the sweeping, striving rock and emotional vulnerability that made Corgan a beacon of alternative rock in the '90s…Corgan summons a liturgical grandeur that makes this an almost religious embrace." -- Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times (three stars)

"He has crafted his most distinctive and consistent music...[he is]...just an artist expressing what all of us feel, and doing it better than most." --Jim DeRogatis, Chicago Sun Times (three and a half stars)
"Among his strongest works… He's taken yet another bold step toward establishing a solo career as intriguing as his once-Smashing life." -- Ben Wener, Orange County Register (Grade: B+)

"Trading in his '70s-metal-guitar onslaught for something more subdued but no less forceful. The highlight is an odd, electronically bent cover of the Bee Gees' ‘To Love Somebody.’" --Aidin Vazira, San Francisco Chronicle

“Nowhere is Corgan's one-foot-in-the-past, one-in-the-future posture more apparent than when he reprises the Bee Gees' ‘To Love Somebody’ in duet with the Cure's Robert Smith. The pair retooled this tune with minor-key sadness." -- Dan Aquilante, New York Post (three stars)

"...some deliciously dark rockers..." -- Sandra Barrera, Los Angeles Daily News (three stars)

“The mostly upbeat songs, highlighted by ‘All Things Change,’ ‘Mina Loy (M.O.H.)’ and ‘A100’ effortlessly flow together.” -- Katy Kroll, Billboard

“The album is a strangely beautiful electro-rock detour from the massed guitars of the Pumpkins and Zwan…” -- Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune

“You don’t merely hear TheFutureEmbrace , you touch it as well. Your senses tingle alive on ‘All Things Change,’ a watery cascade of keyboards that washes over the listener to a metallic synthdrum backbeat.” -- Tom Lanham, Illinois Entertainer

...more coming soon!

June 13th: Amsterdam

June 9th: Belgium