Erasure's Andy Bell and Vince Clarke are stuck in a techno-time warp and proud of it.

On the British dance duo's latest self-titled album, in record stores now, the analog synthesizers are out in full force - and then some.

"It's our Dark Side Of The Moon," says Clarke, referring to the Pink Floyd classic. "That was the inspiration behind it."

Adds Bell: "It's as ambient as we're going to get."

Let's hope so.

The album's longest track, a Tangerine Dream-like ballad called Rock Me Gently, is 10 minutes long and goes off on a strange tangent in which Bell sounds as if he's yodelling in some pretty tight lederhosen.

But Clarke, a founding member of Depeche Mode and later a member of Yazoo with Alison Moyet, doesn't feel he has any "splaining to do."

"Synths are the best," he deadpans.

It may help to know the songs were penned upon his return from a long solo trek - 575 km, to be exact, along the Pennine Way, also known as the backbone of England.

"It was all that walking," Clarke says with a laugh. "I don't know, just to try something different, try to stretch the tracks out. And it was the opportunity to sort of make a soundtrack.''

Handling production duties this time out were The Orb's Thomas Fehlman and Gareth Jones (Depeche Mode, Orbital) while the London Community Gospel Choir makes an appearance on two tracks, including Rock Me Gently.

Clarke, the bookish-looking, straight half of Erasure, composes in his garden at his home in Surrey, west of London. He also has an elaborate home studio that is depicted on the new album's liner notes as a spacecraft-like environment.

Bell, the love song-oriented lyricist and flamboyantly gay half of the group, is seen off to one side emoting into a microphone. The image pretty much sums up their relationship.

Erasure's latest material - the bulk of which is undeniably dance floor - comes not long after the group's popular 1994 release I Say, I Say, I Say, which spawned Always, the duo's best charting single in the U.S. to date. And despite not touring since 1992, Clarke and Bell plan to record yet another album before hitting the road next fall.

That release schedule may seem prolific to some, but for Erasure it is merely the status quo. Their first five albums all came out between 1986 and 1988. "Then we had sort of a break between (1991's) Chorus with (1992's) Pop! and the Abba (cover EP) and then it was three years before the I Say album. Then we got on a roll again," Bell says.

Known for his campy, kitschy performances that include plenty of costume and scenery changes, Bell admits he misses the sell-out crowds.

His most recent appearance on stage was for last year's London production of The Night We Buried Judy, a musical in honor of the 25th anniversary of Stonewall, the historic gay uprising in Greenwich Village the night of Judy Garland's funeral.

"It was really scary,'' he says. "The first night I forgot all my words." "What did you sing?" Clarke asks, and before you know it, Bell is belting out a Judy Garland number.