Unique 3's recent singles have put them on the dance "map", but their recent debut album shows they're more interested in musical experimentation than commercial success.

"WHAT'S IT LIKE IN BRADFORD? IT'S KIND of dead, really. I wish we could say it wasn't, but there just isn't much going on."

So says Edzy of Unique 3, dispelling the notion that there's anything interesting happening in his home town. After last year's media blitz on Manchester, it's probably a wise move. Southerners have a romanticised view of their Northern brethren, treating them as either fated or feted. When the Conservative government tore the heart out of Britain's industrial manufacturing base during the first half of the '80s, the North was decidedly fated. Now it's slowly regenerating, with culture playing a significant role in the process, and the southern-dominated music press has gone into feting mode, stung by criticisms of London bias and afraid of missing out on a "happening scene".

Undoubtedly there's been an upsurge of musical talent north of the border during the past two years - much of it wholeheartedly embracing musical technology. Whether it arose from a "Northern Scene" is another matter, but the media with its urge to impose order on the chaos of life, decided there must be one. Cue "Northern techno", linking groups like Unique 3, Forgemasters, Nightmares on Wax and LFO.

Unique 3 see things differently. Their early influences come from reggae as well as Kraftwerk and electro. Edzy used to play bass in a reggae band, and everyone in the group has been "heavily into reggae and bass" since the early '80s when, as four schoolfriends, they began DJing together in Bradford's community' centres and youth clubs. It was there they acquired the names which they still use Edzy, Deadly D, JMP and DJ Cool Cutz.

"We were in a sound system: Unique 3 and Black Scorpio", recalls Deadly D. "Edzy and Cool Cutz were DJing, JMP was on the mic and I was EQing the sound and working the echo machine. We had a Korg SDD1000 sampler/delay. Actually, it was my brother's sound and his echo machine; we couldn't afford stuff like that - but he had it, and we'd just go and mess about with all this equipment. We used to put records through the echo machine and have the direct outs and the effected outs going through the mixing desk along with the decks, then we'd crossfade between a deck and the echo channel. We used to do things like loop bits off record live."

When JMP (who used to play drums in the Boys Brigade) traded in his kit for a TR909, the group began using it alongside the decks and the SDD1000, manually syncing it to a record on headphones before mixing it in. From there it was a natural progression to making their own music at home - and playing tapes in the club where they DJ'd. By this time, house and techno were making their influence felt in the North. When the group produced a techno-inspired track, 'The Theme', in 1988, they decided it was good enough to release. The record companies didn't agree, so the band formed Chill Records with £500 and released the track themselves as a limited-edition. It now changes hands for upwards of £20. The following year they signed to 10 Records, who released 'The Theme' in original and remixed versions during Autumn '89 - as 808 State were breaking big with 'Pacific State' and Forgemasters were creating a stir with 'Track With No Name'. Perfect timing for the rising tide of interest in Northern techno.

Unique 3 don't want to be labelled as techno, however, as they feel the term is too narrow for the music they want to make.

"We don't want to find ourselves in a position where we bring a soul track out and people don't take it seriously", says Edzy. "We're doing a new hip hop track which might become the next single, and we'll definitely do a soul track in the future. We're freestylers; whatever we feel, we'll put out."

The front room of Deadly D's house provides the location for Unique 3's studio. Here they've recorded much of their music, using a collection of hi-tech equipment which includes two Akai S950s, a Korg M1, Roland Jupiter 8 and an Atari 1040ST running C-Lab's Creator software. And it's here that I catch up with them, having been impressed by the debut album Jus' Unique and the two singles which preceded it.

Setting up the interview, the word was that the group weren't keen to reveal their musical secrets. After reassurance that an MT interview is an honour, however, the date was set and a train ticket booked.

THE MEMBERS OF UNIQUE 3 ALL LIVE IN the same area: Bradford 8. In fact, Cool Cutz and Deadly D live next door to one another (a neat way to avoid disturbing the neighbours when the bass is booming and the bleeps are bleeping). The group are fond of virtually subsonic basslines, and they were partial to "bleeps" until everyone else picked up on the idea. 'The Theme' was the prototype bleep record for the dance generation (though Kraftwerk were happily bleeping away in '81 on 'Pocket Calculator'), but now Unique 3 feel that the bleeps have been used and abused.

"Bleeps are something we started nearly two years ago and something we're getting out of now", says Edsy. "We like to be as original as possible, but there's so many people stealing ideas. It's easy to use somebody else's idea, but the end result is that you get all these tracks that sound the same. I did a tape the other day, mixing four tracks together and it sounded like one 20-minute record. It's partly down to equipment; everybody's got access to the same equipment now. That's why it's hard for us to talk about the equipment we use."

Unique 3 don't take issue with sampling so much as with the lack of creativity it can mask and the lack of originality it can promote. But then technology has always held up a mirror to the human condition, giving us a picture of ourselves as individuals and as a society by forcing us to make moral choices about how - or, in some cases, whether or not - we use it.

With two Akai S950s, a Roland W30 and several boxes of sample disks sitting in their studio, it's clear that Unique 3 have a large sample library and they're willing to use it.

"We sample a lot of stuff ourselves", says Edzy. "Drum sounds, weird little sounds... We sample a lot off quite old records and overdub other stuff to make it sound different. Also we sample a lot from old analogue keyboards. Our Jupiter 8 isn't MIDI'd, so we sample bass sounds off it."

Most of their drum sounds these days are S950 samples - including the faithful TR808 sounds which figure prominently on the electro-inspired 'Code 0274' from the group's album. The combination of general-purpose sampler and sequencer has all but replaced the drum machine, although the trusty TR909 still gets a look-in, and they like to use their other drum machine, a Yamaha RX5, as a rhythm controller, triggering sampled sounds and breakbeats via MIDI, if not so much for its own sounds.

"We were one of the first to use the RX5", Edzy claims, "but everybody's using it now - especially a lot of the reggae stuff. So we might come off that a bit. There's the shakers and stuff like that, but the basic sounds are a bit crap. We got it 'cos we were impressed that it could reverse sounds - it's one of those things that naive guys with a bit of money for a drum machine do."

A more recent acquisition on the rhythmic side is a Roland SPD8, which gives the group one more means of creating their rhythm parts - they don't favour any particular approach.

"It's whatever it takes", says Edzy. "If we're messing about on the drum pads with the sticks and something sounds good, we'll record it like that. Sometimes weil sit down in front of a drum machine, sometimes it'll be samples played from a keyboard... Whatever feels right at the time."

Breakbeats don't figure prominently in Unique 3's music, but as Edzy reveals, this isn't a reflection of what they get up to in the studio:

"We put in a lot of work at home on breakbeats, but it just seems we hardly ever press it up. We mess about with breaks on top of the more techno tracks, but we haven't used anything like that yet."

Unique 3 have a strong independent streak in them, and at a time when everyone else was saying how wonderful old analogue synth technology was, they subtly introduced the cold, ethereal sound of the M1 into dance music with 'The Theme'.

"We never listen to anyone else", says Edzy. "I like old analogue sounds - they've got more beef in them than digital sounds - but there's good digital sounds as well. The week we got the M1, I don't think I ever came off it. There's some really good sounds in there. It's great for all the airy voices and choirs and stuff, even if some of them have been used and abused. We use a lot of presets on the M1, but I think that's kind of funny when you put them in the context of our music. If a preset sounds good to us, we'll use it."

When Unique 3 started making their own music, they bypassed the "Portastudio stage" and went straight into MIDI sequencing with a Yamaha QX21.

"We never really mastered it, though", admits Edzy, "and since we bought Creator and the Atari, it's been an antique collecting dust. Creator's really straightforward and easy to use. If you get a problem with it and you think about it logically, how you would have solved it if you'd put the program together, you can sort it out. It's the program that we started on and that we learnt - probably if we'd learnt Pro24 or something else, we'd have the same arguments for that."

"Creator's always done what I've wanted it to do", confirms Deadly D. "It can do what it takes to make house and hip hop music. When we first started using it we used to work on just one pattern and use the track muting within Creator instead of the desk mutes. The only problem with muting like that is that you can't bring a sound like a break in partway, but still it's a good way of working. We always have arguments about whether or not there's too much in tracks we do, so muting is useful."

"We use a lot of preset sounds on the M1, but I think that's kind of funny when you put them in the context of our music - if a preset sounds good to us then we'll use it."

Edzy describes the Unique 3 approach to creating music: "We just jam. No-one has a specific role in the group. Cutz tends to do a lot of the drum programming, but everybody's programmed different sounds and stuff, and everybody can play keys. Me and JMP might sit at the keyboard together and I'll come up with a bassline while he'll do a top section. We're just messing about, really, seeing what we can come out with. We do work interactively like that a lot."

"We always tape it when we're messing around", adds Deadly D, "because the computer does stuff that it shouldn't do but the result can sound good. The tapes sound better than the finished product because they're live - our goal is to make our music sound more live. One thing we've been doing up to now is recording in short sections, so we're planning to record in longer sections and go for more of a live feel."

The group's live performing debut last November at Prestatyn, which was partly televised on The Word, wasn't without its problems.

"The power went shortly before we were due to play", recalls Deadly D, "so we had to reload all the samples and sequences. Before this happened I'd taken the volume down on one of the samples, but I didn't save the new volume so when I reloaded it was set too loud again. And it came in like that when we were playing live."

So how much of the group's set was performed live and how much was sequenced?

"The only things that weren't live were the hi-hats and bass drum", Edzy replies. "We had the complete sequence running in the computer but we muted everything except for the bass-drum and hi-hat. We want to play all the parts live; it's a good feeling to know that you've got total control on your instrument."

LAST YEAR, UNIQUE 3'S SECOND SINGLE, the double A-sided 'Weight for the Bass'/'Musical Melody', climbed to No. 29 in the national charts - despite making no concessions to popular taste - and saw the group on Top Of The Pops. However, they found their commercial success to be something of a mixed blessing.

"We've been DJing for years", says Edzy, "but now we're doing well, hardcore people don't like it. It pisses them off to see us on telly because they think we've got loads of money. But that's the mentality of the British people in general; it's different in the States, there people expect you to get on.

"Chart success is something a lot of people strive for, but once it happens it's kind of damaging. It takes street credibility away from the record. If you go Top Ten, it's a different thing again - you've made it, and people respect you because of that. But there's a dead zone in the chart below that. If the dance chart got as much attention as Top Of The Pops it would be a different story."

One of the criticisms sometimes levelled against remixing is that it can dilute the musical identity of a group - or even prevent it from being established. As a group with firm ideas about how they want their music to sound and progress, Unique 3's solution is simple: they remix it themselves. It seems only logical (Captain). After all, the purpose of remixing is to enable people who understood what was required to move a crowd on the dancefloor - DJs - to give dancefloor credibility to records made by people who didn't. With their background, Unique 3 don't need any interpreters to tell them how their music should be.

"It would be hard turning our stuff over to somebody else", says Edzy. "We could probably get somebody else on the case, but by the time it was done and if it wasn't exactly what we wanted, it would be out of date."

Deadly D feels that remixes work to the detriment of the track. A case of too many remixers spoiling the vibe?

"It's a marketing ploy. Majors put so much money into a track that they'll use any means necessary to get it back, even if it means putting out five remixes."

Do Unique 3 see themselves becoming remixers of other people's music as well as of their own?

"We've remixed a Redhead Kingpin track and I think we're going to be remixing Sindecut's next track", Edzy replies. "If people are interested in you remixing their stuff, obviously there's a lot more than just financial gain in doing it. It's interesting to see what you can do with somebody else's music."

Isn't there a danger of the group giving away something of themselves to other artists through remixes?

"It depends how much you give away", he replies.

"I don't think any remixer gives 100% on a remix, whatever they say. If you come up with a good idea, you want to save it for yourself - but as long as you do a good job...

"When we remix or we think about remixing, we always study the music that we're remixing and try and keep it in that style. That's how I prefer to work."

The group still keep their hand in as DJs by running their own club night, Phase III, in Bradford. For Edzy it's an important part of their activities.

"We need to DJ", he asserts. "For a time we didn't do any DJing and I felt lost. It's like you don't know what's happening so much."

Edzy also does his bit to enliven the city's airwaves by putting together a weekly show for local pirate station Emergency FM. Unique 3 are firmly rooted in Bradford, and plan to encourage local talent by reactivating Chill Records and setting up their own 24-track recording studio.

"We're finalising a deal for a three-storey building", reports Edzy. "Hopefully, the top floor will be a private 24-track studio that we use, the middle floor will be a commercially-run 24-track studio to generate funds, and the rest of the space will be offices."

As for Unique 3's music, Edzy and Deadly D are clear about where their priorities lie.

"Getting respect is more important than having massive commercial success", says Deadly D. "Experimenting, being as original as we can, and getting respect."

"We just try and stay original", Edzy concurs.