Last time we checked in on Billy Corgan, he was busy opening a spiritual Web site. But regardless of your opinion of the man, you have to hand it to him for his persistence in keeping the Smashing Pumpkins name and brand alive. And yesterday on Smashingpumpkins.com, Corgan wrote a blog post detailing his massive new and free Smashing Pumpkins project.

A 44-song album titled Teargarden by Kaleidyscope will begin to be released one song at a time starting in late October. For those of you who love artwork and lyric books, there will be a sale of 11 limited edition EPs containing four songs, which Corgan describes as more of a mini-box set rather than a CD single. Finally, once all 44 songs are out, a complete box set of the entire album will also be for sale.

But that’s not the best part of the news. If you want the songs without losing the dough, all tracks will be made available for free. Or as Corgan puts it:

There will be no strings attached. Free will mean free, which means you won’t have to sign up for anything, give an email address, or jump through a hoop. You will be able to go and take the song or songs as you wish, as many times as you wish.

So what’s the concept?

The story of the album is based on ‘The Fool’s Journey’, as signified in the progress of the Tarot. 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.

Interesting. But how will it sound?

The music of Teargarden by Kaleidyscope harkens back to the original psychedelic roots of The Smashing Pumpkins: atmospheric, melodic, heavy, and pretty.

It’s hard to not get at least a tiny bit excited reading that last sentence after the bland-ness of Zeitgeist. Lets just hope Corgan can follow through with some sweet tuneage.