With their natty suits and sleek musical grooves that fuse jazzy samples with dance beats, U.F.O. has epitomized a certain perception of Tokyo as fashionable and cosmopolitan, ever since "I Love My Baby (My Baby Loves Jazz)" catapulted across the world's dance floors in 1991.

The stylish veneer, however, is backed by an encyclopedic knowledge of music. Visiting the small apartment that serves as Brownsville Studios, the epicenter for United Future Organization, is like entering a musical incubator. Records of every description are everywhere: jazz standards stacked on the floor; European pop slid beneath chairs; Latin records teetering precariously on the edge of a desk.

The trio of Tadashi Yabe, Toshio Matsuura and Raphael Sebbag have been fixtures of Tokyo's club culture since its inception in the early '80s. Both Sebbag and Yabe worked at Pithecan Tropus, the first Tokyo establishment that fit the modern definition of a club. They were joined by Matsuura, anxious to make the switch from wait-staff to DJ. At the time it wasn't such a radical change; DJs hadn't yet attained their current status as cultural icons and were treated as just another part of the help.

Not that DJing is all glamour even nowadays. Matsuura, after DJing a five-hour set the night before, arrived for a recent interview with fellow member Sebbag still yawning. To keep things fresh, he often "DJs around the world," he says. "I find a particular groove or beat and follow it throughout the night -- through Brazilian or African music and so on. Sometimes I can even circle the globe twice in one night."

The group's new album, "Bon Voyage" (Brownsville/ Mercury), with its lurking sitars and tablas, gentle hints of Moroccan percussion, and, of course, U.F.O.'s almost signature Latin flourishes, is also very much a musical journey without geographic boundaries. For the trio, it represented an emotional journey as well.

"The creating of the music itself was in a sense a journey," explains Matsuura. "By grasping for what sort of track we would make next, there was also a sort of self-search or self-confirmation. We were at once looking back on ourselves and going forward at the same time. It wasn't anything we set out consciously to achieve, but in the process of realizing our musical ideas, this was the result."

Though tracks such as "Tres Amigos" and a cunningly chosen cover of "Flying Saucer," which features vocals from Tony award winner and noted jazz vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater, fit snugly in the standard U.F.O. groove, the album holds a few surprises. The opening track, "Good Luck Shore," with its layers of samples and guitar, would almost be at home on a Cornelius album, while "Happy Birthday" is a strange moody piece that recalls a cabaret-style Astor Piazzola composition.

"I'm not sure if it's a case of our pushing boundaries," says Matsuura. "Rather, I have been playing music for years without really adhering to a particular genre; thus the album is natural in that I listen to different sorts of music. Similarly, if I go to different countries or different places, I never really change, though perhaps some people would. If you have this sense of self, the idea of boundaries becomes meaningless; it's irrelevant."

A strong sense of themselves, both as individuals and as a group, is what keeps U.F.O. fresh amid the quickly changing club scene. Even their satorial sense, another U.F.O. trademark, is more a sign of individualism than any subcultural affiliation. It is, as Yabe put it, a matter of "themselves being themselves."

Their music is similar in its own gentle defiance. "Maybe people were expecting some drum 'n' bass," says Sebbag. "For us, to make something new is to make something else."

"I am more concerned with U.F.O. remaining U.F.O.," adds Matsuura which, in the trend-driven music market, is itself radical.

Despite their established careers as musicians and producers, it often seems that at least one member of U.F.O. is DJing somewhere in Tokyo on any given night of the week. At Aoyama's Blue, a club which they helped produce, they are virtually house DJs; at many other clubs, most notably Yellow, they are regular guests.

"I also think that because I DJ, there is U.F.O.," says Matsuura. "DJing and creating tracks are in a sense different sides of the same coin. DJing is a method of stimula tion. It creates a place or a moment where new things can be born."

"You don't know what's going to happen any given night," adds Sebbag. "But that doesn't matter sometimes: I don't care. I'm playing what I like, and I am giving what positive energy I can. The result is that night after night there is a small percentage of people who go back happy, happy with their lives and thinking, yes, this has been a good night."

U.F.O. with special guest Gilles Petersen of Talkin' Loud, May 21 at 10 p.m., Shinjuku Liquid Room. 3,500 yen in advance; 4,000 yen at the door. For more information, call the Liquid Room at (03) 3200-6831. Other performance dates are as follows: June 5 at Grand Cafe, Osaka; June 11 at Club Voice, Oita; June 12 at O/D, Fukuoka; June 13 at Indigo, Kagoshima; June 14 at t.b.c, Kagoshima; June 18 at Metro, Kyoto; June 19 at Club OTO-YA, Kobe; July 9 at The Bump, Okinawa; July 10 at t.b.c., Nagasaki; and July 31 at Blue Blue, Sendai.

If "Interstellar Overdrive"-era Pink Floyd were locked in a closet with a techno DJ (or two or three), a digeridoo player and a really hot percussion section, it might approximate AOA's concert at the Liquid Room in Shinjuku last weekend. Improvising their way through nearly an hour of music, AOA proved that dance music can be spontaneous, and, if the swaying masses were any indication, still danceable.

Their new album, "Domegapeace," lacks the dynamic subtlety of their first release, but it continues to illustrate that the intersection of club music, psychedelia and improvisation is a mighty interesting musical place to be.