SERJ TANKIAN Launches 'Really Exciting' New Project: 'Disarming Time Musical Paintings'

Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, poet and political activist Serj Tankian has uploaded a new three-and-a-half-minute video clip called "Disarming Time Paintings." Check it out below.

Describing the project, Serj stated: "I have just embarked on a something really exciting and new called 'Disarming Time Musical Paintings.' What that is is I'm writing a piece of music first, as I usually do, and then I am making a painting from it and embedding the music — with speakers and MP3 players — within the actual frame of the painting. So this is really exciting for me, 'cause I've never painted in my life before."

He added: "The urge came to my in the discovery that music has become so temporal and devalued in the world today — even though we love music; anyone watching this and myself inclusive. So I wanted to create an exclusive experience. I wanted to create something unique for someone to hold, that they're the only person to get to experience that."

Tankian is releasing two albums this summer through his own label, Serjical Strike Records. First up on June 25 will be "Orca", Tankian's first true symphony, while July 23 will see the release of a collaborative jazz-inspired disc called "Jazz-iz Christ". Tankian recorded "Orca" in Linz, Austria last October with a symphony orchestra after a successful Kickstarter campaign helped fund the project.

Meanwhile, the 15 tracks on the mostly instrumental "Jazz-iz Christ" feature Tankian performing alongside guests like renowned pianist Tigran Hamasyan, flautist Valeri Tolstov, trumpet player Tom Duprey, former POLICE drummer Stewart Copeland and actor/musician Davis Alpay.

Both albums will be available worldwide on iTunes, Amazon and other digital distributors. Various limited deluxe physical editions will be sold through Tankian's official web site and the Serjical Strike web site.

The musician, who has dabbled in film scoring and writing a musical as well, told The Pulse Of Radio a while back that all these projects are part of his diverse musical interests. "I've made enough rock records, I think, for a little while for me to be able to kind of go, okay, you know, I wanna try different things," he said. "I write all sorts of music, from electronic to noise to experimental to punk to hip-hop to you name it, you know. I do a lot of different things, so I'd like to explore different genres."

Following a concert in Los Angeles on July 29, SYSTEM OF A DOWN will tour Europe throughout the month of August. After that, Tankian will launch a series of solo orchestral tour dates on September 19 in Kiev, Ukraine, with performances scheduled for Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities in Russia, along with stops in Rome, Florence and Padova, Italy.

SYSTEM OF A DOWN still does not have any plans to record in the near future.