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Freedom and sacrifice — it's been the artist's credo since Cro-Magnon first smeared ocher onto a cave wall, and all these thousands of years later, it's no different.

Take Angel Zuniga Martinez, formerly of Angel and the Love Mongers — he's got a new album, “The Cage,” that he'll celebrate with a performance on Saturday at The Bijou Theatre in downtown Knoxville. It's been an endeavor more than a year in the making, one that's seen him through the dissolution of his old band and the loss of a good job.

It's his vision — his baby from start to finish, made without the input, argumentative and otherwise, that characterized the first two Angel and the Love Mongers records. But it's been a long and difficult birthing process, Martinez told The Daily Times this week.

“It's been a process of change,” Martinez said. “When I started it out, the songs got written and then rebirthed again in the studio, sometimes by accident. Some of the stuff I got excited about and thought was great; other stuff I thought was too much. It just all started with a beat or something that got my brain grooving, and it just grew from there.”

In a way, Martinez has come full circle. Originally from South Texas, he moved to Knoxville a few years ago after spending time in Nashville. In Texas, he was so active in the Dallas-Fort Worth music scene that it nearly consumed him. However, it was a period of his life during which he learned much, and getting back to those roots during the making of “The Cage” has been nostalgic, he said.

“I started out in a band, but I would also play out as Angel Zuniga Martinez, so I'm familiar with the process — I just haven't done it in so long,” he said. “Sometimes, it's hard to get the terminology down again, especially in the studio. I would hear something but couldn't put my finger on it, so I would tell the guys to play it louder or softer, and we would just keep going back until we got it and I said, ‘OK, that's how I wanted it to sound like.'”

With Angel and the Love Mongers, the emphasis was on Brit-pop; the group often earned comparisons to Queen with Martinez playing the role of flamboyant front man to the hilt. “The Cage,” however, takes those basic elements, throws in plenty of additional ingredients and pushes puree on the whole thing.

The title track kicks things off, and for the first couple of tracks, it seems like a familiar shirt — worn but comfortable. With the fifth song — “My Fault” — the differences leap from the shadows, and all of the sudden Martinez has veered into new territory — mournful blues guitar weeps alongside wailing sax solos, and from that point forward, it's game on.

“Sounds” ventures into the borderlands where rock and electronic music meet, with spoken-word and hip-hop providing the vocal anchor. “The Man” sports a lounge lizard-esque vibe, and a few songs later, “Play” sports a cabaret vibe while the very next song, “Madman,” flirts with Middle Eastern beats. It's quirky but whimsical, a solid effort that wallows in and celebrates its diversity.

And that doesn't even begin to touch on the lyrics, which straddle the fence between the emotional and the political. A former investment banker, Martinez lost his job during the making of “The Cage,” something that threw the whole process into a tailspin.

“That was a blow, and when I was singing some of these songs, especially overdubbing the vocals, I think a lot of that emotion is there because it was an unexpected loss,” he said. “On top of that, over the past nine months I've had two PA systems and a couple of different guitars stolen, so this album definitely has some of that cycle you go through when you deal with unexpected loss.”

In addition, his already opinionated views about the U.S. economy — he was vehemently opposed to the Wall Street bailout and made no secret of his position on his various Web sites — became fodder for the songwriting mill as well.

“There's a song about the bailout and some of the struggles I've been going through because it's getting harder and harder to be a part of corporate America,” he said. “I feel for people who have heart and care — it's very frustrating to be in that position, because it's all managed by fear, and it's all about control.”

However, he's managed to strike a balance between business and art with his most recent endeavor, Zunimar Music — a cooperative of artists that includes Kevin Hyfantis and The Bishops Band, a group that shares the bill at Saturday night's Bijou showcase and serves as Martinez's backing band. If anything, Martinez said, he's in a unique position given his artistic and economic backgrounds to bridge the divide between the two.

“Artists can't dismiss the business community, and the business community can't lash out at the art community,” he said. “I remember at Bonnaroo I saw Michael Franti and Spearhead, who has a heart for the same thing, and something he said really struck me. He basically said, ‘I know that, in the past, I used to vent at Big Government and corporate America, but I feel like that's not a productive way any more to go about affecting change in the community.'

“Art and music need to communicate things we need and want for our communities, and if that's communicated to corporate America, that's fine but it shouldn't stop at just railing — it should offer solutions as well. I have a lot of respect for that idea, and I guess that's part of where my heart is. I think I understand the principle of both sides — what it's like to be an artist and to be a businessman.”

With Zunimar, he's committed to helping out community causes, especially the Family Justice Center, which has been a pet project for several years now. At the same time, it's about offering artists a helping hand — after all, Martinez is a family man; laboring under the “starving artist” image may be bourgeois-chic, but it won't put food on his table.

If anything, he hopes that people take that duality away from his new CD, and from Saturday's concert. (A portion of merchandise and ticket sales sold during Saturday's show, incidentally, will benefit the Family Justice Center and the Red Cross.) And he hopes it will continue the momentum that's already carrying him forward toward his next project.

“There's a lot of variety on the album, and I hope people take that away from it but also the heart, too,” he said. “There are a lot of social issues that are addressed. I look at it as a good launching pad for the next album, and I already have a couple of songs written for it.”