Saul Williams is returning to music with a self-titled, sophomore album due September 21th. After releasing his latest book , said the shotgun to the head, Williams, a poet and political activist, spent last fall performing his poetry on tour with the Mars Volta. On Saul Williams, he recruited Volta's Isaiah 'Ikey' Owens, System of a Down's Serj Tankian and Zack de la Rocha to aid in the self-produced affair.

"Serj approached me months ago and told me, 'Yo, I wrote a song for you on piano,'" Williams says. "He gave it to me on CD right when I was recording the album and I was like 'Oh my god, this would be a perfect introduction.'" The collaboration resulted in the album's opening track, "Talk to Strangers," where Williams recites his verse over a nervy piano refrain flecked with samples of female opera singers.

Musically, Saul Williams matches Williams' lyrics with gritty, frittered guitar and urgent rhythms. "List of Demands (Reparations)" finds Williams singing, "I gotta list of demands written on the palm of my hands" over a staccato guitar-riff that sounds like gunfire. "I wrote the music first for that song . . . It was just pure anger," he says.

For Williams, songwriting is as emotion-driven as poetry. But his writing process differs. "Most of the songs on the album were music first," he says. "When I'm recording an album, I don't really think in terms of myself as poet.

"I don't beat up myself as much with the songs," he continues. "With poetry, I will really grind to get to the root of an emotion whereas the music for me is a release."

Williams relishes his protean roles and is now at work on an off-Broadway play that he says is "very much about our current political state in connection to the power of hip-hop." William's own activist tendencies continue to be fed by the political climate.

"I think more artists are realizing the importance of saying something that is relevant," Williams says. "I think that Bush has been good for the arts, no, not in the funding . . . but overall I think it's been good because it's made us think. And it's a great time to think and apply it to our music."

Saul Williams track listing:

Talk to Strangers
Grippo
Telegram
Act III Scene 2 (Shakespeare)
List of Demands (Reparations)
African Student Movement
Black Stacey
PG
Surrender (A Second to Think)
Control Freak
Seaweed
Notice of Eviction