Suzanne Vega plays Avo Session

On "Beauty & Crime", the Manhattan native Suzanne Vega uses New York City as the backdrop for a collection of eleven new songs that juxtapose acoustic guitar-driven melodies with coolly synthesized beats. "Beauty & Crime" is her first new studio album in six years. The album has the warmth of analog but the technology of the digital world. Among the players joining Vega and members of her touring band are guitarists Gerry Leonard (David Bowie, Rufus Wainwright) and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth; Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall contributed background vocals and vocal arrangements.