NEW YORK -- Bentley Rhythm Ace members Richard March and Mike Stokes are sitting in a cramped office, trying to answer questions in a serious and professional way. At the moment, that's no easy task.

Even though their 1997 debut album, Bentley Rhythm Ace (Caroline Records), has produced a top-20 single in Britain, "Bentley's Gonna Sort You Out" (register at Streamland to see the video), as well as spawned an extensive world tour, the boys from Birmingham, England, have few serious things to say about their music. They are tired, punchy and anything but honest at the moment.

ATN: What are your musical influences?

Stokes: Karen Carpenter, Chicago.

March: We really like bands named after American places: Boston, Chicago, Kansas.

ATN: How did you meet?

March: I was [Stokes'] baby sitter.

Stokes: But he had girls over. And drank. My mum and dad found out and banned him from the house.

ATN: Do people ask you for your autograph?

Stokes: Banks do. When I get money out.

The truth of it is that March and Stokes -- both roughly 30 years old (they refused to give their exact age) -- met in Birmingham in '95, at a party where Stokes was DJing. "I was playing records and he really loved them," Stokes said. "Then we nearly kissed ... But we didn't, so we made music instead. We were lonely."

Bentley Rhythm Ace were born soon after and the two spent months rifling through yard sales and record stores to find vinyl records for their signature sampling style, music they cheerily coin as "carbootechnodisco."

Whatever the boys' label, the songs on Bentley Rhythm Ace are cool: danceable beats mixed with campy, James Bondish sounding samples, surf music mixed with techno. "Let There Be Flutes" (RealAudio excerpt) is a multiple assault of bass, beats and flutes; the popular, chart-hitting "Bentley's Gonna Sort You Out" combines thumping trip-hop with sultry feminine sighs. For their video to "Bentley's Gonna Sort You Out," the boys risked death: parachuting out of an airplane over a field in Nottinghamshire, England, where a rough landing resulted in a fractured tailbone for March.

Apparently, March has healed enough to get back to work, albeit in a less-than-serious way.

Continuing on their press tour, March and Stokes are whisked from this cozy interview at the SonicNet office to mid-Manhattan, where they find themselves perched in the glass-enclosed DJ booth at HMV Records as guest DJs at the 35th Street store. March -- formerly of Pop Will Eat Itself, and the older and taller of the two Aces -- plays the part of older brother to Stokes' sleepy goofiness. Rifling through a bag, March busily picks out vinyl records, while Stokes yawns and thumbs through a recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine.

Instead of playing their own music, March chooses to spin old French electronica mixed with rare swing, lounge and trip-hop. Bentley's DJing causes problems, explains DJ Magic, the full-time DJ at HMV in New York.

"We're not supposed to play stuff we don't sell," says Magic after the DJ party that night at HMV. "But people kept coming up to the managers and asking where they could buy what they were hearing."

"They were really nice guys," Magic adds.

Three days later, the DJs arrive at New York City's El Flamingo Club. Taking the stage two hours after their scheduled 11 p.m. performance, Stokes and March appear wearing full afro wigs, sequined bellbottoms and Hawaiian shirts. Costume and humor are an integral part of their performance. At a stint at London's Rocket club, they sported policemen's helmets. In Iceland for a New Year's Eve show, they dressed up as Vikings. "Some people didn't like that," they admit.

And at El Flamingo, dressed like hipster '70s-throwbacks, Bentley Rhythm Ace are accompanied by a full band, as well as the front end of the car -- which holds their turntable.

As raccoon-eyed hipsters dance or simply nod to the beats, Bentley Rhythm Ace play most of the songs off their new album: "Spacehopper," "Let There Be Flutes," "Why is Frog Too?" and "Bentley's Gonna Sort You Out." Dancing and wiggling onstage, March and Stokes exhibit sheer pleasure in their artistry -- an adolescent dream come true for any DJ.

If anything is certain, they're having a good time with their success. [Wed., Jan. 14, 1998, 9 a.m. PST]