Melissa Auf Der Maur is recording her sophomore Capitol album with the help of some old friends, including former Smashing Pumpkins bandmate Billy Corgan and Steve Durand and Jordon Zadorozny, her colleagues in the 1990s Canadian rock outfit Tinker.

After spending most of last year writing material, Auf Der Maur tells Billboard.com she recently recorded a song each with Corgan and producer Gavin Brown. But she has opted to complete the album in Ontario with Durand and Zadorozny, whom she calls her "oldest friends. I went in to innocently make some demos with them, but by the end of [last] summer, I started realizing that material was more genuine."

Auf Der Maur has reveled in banging out tracks in the studio, a process that has been aided by the presence of Priestess drummer Vince Nudo. "He is one of the best drummers I've ever seen, let alone in Canada," she reports.

The artist is particularly enthused by the track "Out of Our Minds," the first she wrote in tandem with Nudo, Durand and Zadorozny. "That's a good example of a song that came from an off-time drum-and-bass thing and the guitar came in doing its own thing accidentally," she says, adding with a laugh, "It was literally jamming. I haven't jammed since the early '90s!"

The as-yet-untitled album is the follow-up to Auf Der Maur's 2004 self-titled debut, which reached No. 8 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart. A late 2006 release date is being targeted, but Auf Der Maur admits, "Who the hell knows? At the very least I've got to be on tour. Now that the vision is solidifying, I think I should be able to get it out."

"I genuinely believe that I have to make this the best it can possibly be, because in many ways I see it as my first real record," she continues. "The last one was sort of like glorified demos from years before I even made it. It was dated. It was almost like my little baby beginning. Now, this is my much more hard-at-work, mature effort."