by LORRAINE CARPENTER

With its fluid fusion of chill electronica, bossa nova beat and sultry Portuguese vocals, 1999's Tanto Tempo was Bebel Gilberto's introduction to the world, the singer's first record released outside of her native Brazil. Gilberto's latest, self-titled, bilingual disc features largely self-penned songs played with warmer, more acoustic arrangements, apt ingredients in a self-portrait of a woman leading life on an international scale.

"Bebel Gilberto is about the last four years of my life - falling in love, travelling all around the world and having a broken heart," says Gilberto, whose longtime exposure to show business has prepared her for the volatile life of an artist.

By American standards, Bebel is basically a Jackson. Her father João Gilberto is a bossa nova legend, her mother Miúcha is a renowned singer, her stepmother Astrud Gilberto sang "The Girl From Ipanema" and her uncle Chico Buarque was one of Brazil's first pop stars.

Raised in Rio, Gilberto moved back to her birthplace, New York City, in 1991, where she collaborated with American musicians such as David Byrne, Thievery Corporation, Deee-Lite's Towa Tei and (for the money, she admits), Kenny G. Having made her international debut so recently, Gilberto is frequently written up in the context of her famous family by journalists more interested in Brazilian bossa lore than the subject at hand. Gilberto, now 38, is understandably tired of questions about mom and pop, yet she's quick to highlight their influence on her music and her life.

"When I was young, I used to go with my mother to record jingles and commercials, and of course I didn't realize it at the time, but it had a very big impact on me," she says.

At the age of nine, Gilberto began performing in musicals with her parents, a sporadic thrill that opened the door for film and television work. Though she's strictly focused on singing these days, there's one role she would snap up without hesitation.

"If a director came to me and asked me to play Carmen Miranda, then of course, yes! This is my dream," she says.

For now, Gilberto is living another dream, that of an autonomous singer-songwriter in the midst of another world tour. Though constantly re-living the emotional upheaval recounted in her songs isn't always easy, Gilberto varies the mood with her album's carefully selected covers of compositions by Caetano Veloso, Carlinhos Brown, Daniel Jobim and famed singer Pedro Baby, who happens to be Gilberto's new guitarist.

As on the record, produced by Marius de Vries, her live arrangements shy away from the beats and loops of Tanto Tempo, whose esteemed producer Mitar Subotic (aka Suba) died in a fire shortly after that album was released. Despite that tragic event and periods of familial friction, Gilberto feels blessed to have built her own career and collaborated with so many heroes and pioneers of Brazilian music.

"With bossa nova, and other Brazilian music too, there's something very cool and soothing and personal in the sound. That's why people love this music, and it will always be with us."

With guests at the Spectrum on Thursday, Aug. 19, 8 p.m., $29.50

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