But she began thinking about Glass’s reaction. “I decided to hire an engineer to work with, Brit Myers, and we just played music into the computer. I riffed around and made loops and things, without lyrics. It was a new way for me to work, and part of the sleekness of these songs may be that I was working on a computer, which compresses everything and allows you to edit and alter your work in really interesting ways. It becomes like a collage. “
Myers and Vega worked on Garageband, the same program that allows high-school kids to cut songs in their bedrooms and post them on MySpace. “Some of the loops we made using Garageband ended up on the album,” she says. All the same, her acoustic guitar is the disc’s heartbeat and her breathy singing is its soul.
“I felt like I really pushed myself vocally on many of these songs. I tried to phrase differently and concentrate on the melodies. I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone. I decided to sing in keys I wouldn’t have sung in before, work with different textures, and just do whatever sounded good to me.
“Being a performing songwriter is like being the horse and the trainer at the same time. You’re the beast that writes the songs, but you also have to train yourself to perform them correctly. Working with the computer made that much easier, since you’re able to try almost every option with what you’ve recorded.”
Vega admits that harmony singing remained her weak spot during the sessions. Eventually she hired producer Jimmy Hogarth, who’s worked with KT Tunstall and Corinne Bailey Rae, to shepherd them; Hogarth, in turn, brought Tunstall in to arrange and sing harmonies. Tunstall adds a multi-layered coating of sugar to “Zephyr & I,” making the tune sound like a refugee from the Velvet Underground’s pop masterpiece Loaded (RCA).
“Angel’s Doorway,” the story of a cop on post in the dusty wasteland of the ruined Trade Center, has a turn from another prominent New York City musician: Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo. His shimmer and clang gives the song a ghostly element.
“Lee is somebody who I keep running into all over New York, at different parties and events. I thought it would be nice to have him on that song. I was looking for a combination of new sounds, and though what he did wasn’t different for him, it certainly was for one of my songs.”
And of the Beauty and Crime tour that’ll bring her to Somerville, Vega says, “We won’t be able to reproduce some of the new songs exactly, but we will be using some of the loops we created and some string samples.” Her backing band will also expand to five with the addition of Alison Cornell, who’ll play keyboard, violin, and acoustic guitar and sing backing vocals. “To me, being able to expand the sound of the band in the same way we did for the album seems very modern, and that appeals to me right now.”
SUZANNE VEGA | Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square, Somerville | September 20 | 617.625.6700
