COLDCUT must sometimes feel like Dr Frankenstein, watching what they've created become a "mega-DJ/coke/babe" monster. Do it yourself, they said. Get up on the decks and samplers and make music that doesn't need swollen egos and corporate logos. But, as Black admits, "innovation isn't particularly lucrative". They made '70 Minutes of Madness' in 1995, partly as a two finger salute to the DJs that have turned into pop stars and marketing machines instead of getting their fingers dirty making new music out of the raw material. Ironically, Arista refused them permission to use their 'People Hold On' single on the mix but were happy for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels to turn it into what Coldcut slated as a "crapsploitation cheesefest by dinosaurs". No wonder a lot of people think Coldcut hate house music. Black leans back and looks thoughtful. "We don't hate house music. It's just become commodified to such an extent it's just not a fun area to work out of at the moment. I have a picture of the fat old Nazi bastards who are really running most things having a good fucking laugh at the fact that the rave-o-lution has been privatised and sold back in a nice packaging of fake rebellion. Music is software. People have in their lives need for certain types of software. Go down to the disco, do your E, wig out to house music all night long. Fine. No problem. But that hasn't actually got anything to do with soul, emotion, intelligence, depth, longevity or content. It's a burger. Know that you're consuming a burger."

But doesn't this scene that Coldcut loathe so much mean the most to the most amount of people in the country? Most often, dance music means Saturday night escapism, getting out of your head and out of your weekday skin. Don't Black and More run the risk of sounding just a little bit snobbish? "Well..." Black ponders, "...yes. But we know we're being snobbish and it's not good to be snobbish so we say, 'OK, fine. Just get on with your thing.'" "We don't think it's snobbish," responds More almost simultaneously. "We're just identifying what it is and it works. I mean I have a McDonald's from time to time because I like to remind myself what it's for. It might not be real but it'll sort you out." "It's when you get people debating very seriously with immense front covers and largings up about who is the best hamburger griller at McDonald's," adds Black. "It's a non-event." And the clubbers? Black, mellowing, smiles wrily. "Well the kids are all right, aren't they?"

COLDCUT don't mean to be cocky or patronising or full of themselves, they really don't. They just think that there's too much crap music around and too many people following the times instead of being ahead of them. "We're not put off by competition," says Black. "There isn't any fucking competition. We want to be sickened by what other people are doing, which just isn't happening. I don't think Journeys By DJ was that great. It was simply much better than any of the other ones." So they keep raising the stakes, like the CD-ROM that comes free with 'Let Us Play', with its random sample generator, a home remixing kit, a quiz machine and a guide to Ninja Tune philosophy.

"I'm more interested in the National Centre for Super Computing Applications and stuff like a numerical model of a severe storm than any trip hop," Black confesses, rapid-firing volleys of theories and questions about interactive technology, visual mixing and digital jockeys. If dance culture ever has its own Tomorrow's World, Matt Black would be the perfect host. Now everything that Coldcut do is run from Ninja Tune, and every time they succeed - with Ninja, with Stealth, with Journeys By DJ - you can imagine them saying "fuck you" to the industry. Every criticism they've received they use as fuel - they even named their publishing company Just Isn't Music after the old guard purists who heard 'Say Kids' and said: "I'm sorry, but this just isn't music." Because now there are Number One albums and Mercury Prize nominations and Hollywood soundtracks from people who have done things their way and refused to fit the mould. And finally the artists can call the shots. "I feel like we cut a hole in the fence," smiles More. "Got into the garden, had a little party and then the farmer with the gun came along and we fucked off with a wounded leg. Now we've healed and actually this side of the fence is much nicer because the farmer's poisoned his land so much that he wants to cut a hole in our fence."
Black has to leave the interview halfway through for a meeting so it's left to More to talk through Coldcut's history, chattering away with amiable enthusiasm about the good times and the terrible ones. He admits that they're not so much avant garde as "avant a clue". And that, like the ninja or the Wizard Of Oz, they come over as confident because they have a "good funky facade". And there's one incident he remembers from 1982 that sums up why Coldcut do the things they do.
"I got thrown out of one club by the promoter because I played a Fela Kuti track. I was so pleased that I annoyed him because it was a continuation of the way punk annoyed so many people. I thought I was on to something pretty decent if I could fuck people off like that." A lot of people don't get Coldcut. Maybe that's the point.
'Let Us Play' is out on September 8th on Ninja Tune

Jonathan More's best ever nights out

1. Throbbing Gristle at the Spanish Centre, early 80s
"They had ideas about bringing people together and giving it a pseudo-corporate identity when in fact there were only three or four people involved. It's ninja. It's cardboard and smoke and mirrors and cloaks and tricks and sleight of hand. I think that's what makes a good club. It amazes me that people can still get away with fucking blue and red lights, some smoke and a sparkly curtain."
2. Herbie Hancock at the Rocket, 1982
"There were a lot of the same bods there as we'd see watching people like Grandmaster Flash. We started recognising one another from going to the same sort of things."
3. Flim Flam
"That was the second club I did. CJ Mackintosh would play one week and Test Department would play the next so we're still doing the same shit really. Still mixing it up."
4. The Mud Club, 1986
"That was an experience, Jay Strongroom and Philip Salon and all that. We used to take our tunes down there and test them. I've got all the fliers at home. I've got a brilliant collection of fliers."
5. Stealth, 1995
"The first one was pretty outrageous. So many people had asked us if we were going to do something that we felt a bit churlish, so we kind of got it together. We were very very nervous that there was going to be nobody there because it was a Monday night. When we saw the queue going around the block it was so nice to think that at last we'd managed to escape from being tucked in some corner at some rave venue where 30 people might hear us on a fucked up little system. We started in the small room, we got into the big room eventually, and then they tried to kick us out again. So fuck 'em. We closed it because we didn't want any of the people doing it to get bored and think, 'Oh God, it's Stealth.'"

Ahead Of Our Time: Ten Coldcut Landmarks