Care for a smoke? It's doubtful that k.d. lang fans will need a nicotine fix after listening to the Canadian singer's next album, which is due out this summer. lang is currently holed up in a Los Angeles studio finishing work on the as-yet-untitled follow-up to 1995's All You Can Eat and her new effort will feature a definite theme of cigarette addiction, evident on songs like "Last Cigarette," "Smoke Rings," and "Mild Addiction."

Producer Craig Street and lang are busy overdubbing drums and keyboards and are contemplating adding strings to a couple of tracks at the end of the month, according to Dan Kopelson, the engineer on the album. Kopelson says that lang's seventh effort -- which contains one straight-ahead jazz tune -- conjures up images of "sitting back with a cigarette" and "two glowing embers in the dark."

Prior to the record's release, fans can catch a glimpse of lang portraying a feminist film director (a real stretch) in "Mario Puzo's The Last Don." In the six-hour mini-series, which will air May 21 on CBS -- lang's alter-ego, Dita Tommey, directs Daryl Hannah's character in an epic feature film.