"IMAGINE all that has gone on in this hotel room, " says the diminutive Brazilian Bebel Gilberto.

"Fights, sex, all kinds of craziness."

Though no stranger to the itinerant lifestyle, the singer clearly has ways of making such psychically "soiled" spaces seem more homely.

"Frankincense, " she smiles, lighting a stick with the same match that has just fired her full-strength Marlboro. "I put it in the bathroom and the bedroom and it gets rid of other people's energies."

We've met to discuss Gilberto's new record, Momento, an album that was recorded in Rio, New York and London. Marrying sensuous bossa nova with subtle electronica flourishes, it is a sexy balm for the senses, infused with that gorgeous, happy-sad, feeling that the Brazilians call saudade.

Being the keeper of the bossa nova flame, lest we forget, is Gilberto's birthright.

Her father, Joao, is largely credited with pioneering the genre's distinctive rhythms and chord inversions, with his songwriting partner, Antonio Carlos Jobim, while her mother, Miucha, is a famous Brazilian singer.

Her stepmother, moreover, is none other than Astrud The Girl From Ipanema Gilberto.

One of Bebel Gilberto's contributions to the family business has been to contemporise and further popularise the Latin sound, her million-selling 2000 album Tanto Tempo, a near-perfect blend of the cutting-edge and the traditional.

As Gilberto is quick to acknowledge, the input of the electronics whiz Suba, aka the Yugoslav-born pianist-turned producer Mitar Subotic, was crucial to that album's success. He died in a fire at his Sao Paulo apartment before Tanto Tempo was released. "I owe him so much, " Gilberto says softly, playing with a gold pendant that depicts a tiny bird with a ruby in its beak. "My music has two categories: before Suba and after Suba."

On Momento she worked with a number of producers and collaborators. The playful, jazz-fluteimbued 'Ca�ada' was nailed with Mauro Refosco and Jorge Continentino at a tiny Rio studio whose stunning ocean view previously inspired John Lennon.

'Ca�ada' translates as 'The Hunt', and was written by Gilberto's uncle, the musician and novelist Chico Buarque. "It's about desiring someone; craving their body like an animal, " she says.

"When the moon gets full you can almost smell them in the air, and it's like. . ." she breathes in slowly and deeply, "mmm! People tell me my music is very sensual. I like to take advantage of that and seduce people."

Born in New York City in 1966, but raised in Rio de Janeiro, Gilberto says that music wasn't a conscious career choice, but rather an integral part of her life from the get-go: "I don't understand it when people talk about studying music at college. I come from a completely different world.

When my parents were recording or touring, I was there, too. I'd get up in the morning and my father was playing the guitar while my mom cooked breakfast."

By the age of nine, she'd sung at Carnegie Hall, with her mother and the saxophone legend Stan Getz, and as a teenager she acted and sang in Circo Voador, an experimental theatre company based on Ipanema Beach. "Someone from the BBC asked me if I'd heard of the Flying Circus, " she says, translating the theatre company's name. "I said, 'Heard of it?

Honey, you're talking to one of the founders!'" For all her early successes in Brazil, Gilberto has conceded that, when she relocated to New York in 1991, it was partly to escape her lineage. It was a heady, celebratory time, Gilberto enjoying the Big Apple's nightlife to the full. Even now, aged 40, the partying lifestyle is clearly something she still enjoys. "If you don't let the stress get to you, the age doesn't catch you too much, " she says. "I pretend that I'm still 15 and hopefully I can keep it that way a little bit longer."

Does she have any unfulfilled ambitions? "Yes, I would like to be rich . . . and take care of all the poor people that need care and love and attention. I'm doing some work with the ABC (Action for Brazil's Children) Trust. They have this fabulous idea where people come to Rio to learn Brazilian music, and the money for the trip goes to children's schools and helps pay for the medication they need."

'Momento' is out on V2 on 2 April