The Education of Uncanny Alliance : The duo’s first record was bootlegged into New York’s biggest dance hit, and ‘I’m Beautiful Dammit!’ should have been a crossover smash. This time out, they’re ready

Uncanny Alliance’s “I’m Beautiful Dammit!” is one of the most affecting protest songs of the ‘90s, but it didn’t come from pithy alternative rockers or angry rappers. It came from the dance world, normally the last place you look for biting commentary.

The sly, subtle, hook-laden song strikes a blow for everyone trying to find self-worth in a culture where race, supermodel good looks and fat bankrolls generally set the standards.

The single’s most memorable element is a pleading and defiant chorus--”Ain’t this my sun / Ain’t this my moon / Ain’t this my world / To be who I choose?”--set against a jittery guitar, swirling keyboards and funky, insistent beats. In the background, a robotic male voice bellows repeatedly, “You don’t belong!”

It’s no small irony that “House of Style,” MTV’s tribute to superficiality and exclusivity, missed the point and featured the song during one of its broadcasts.

A far more substantial song than anything from C+C Music Factory (whose “Gonna Make You Sweat” in 1990 remains one of the biggest hits ever from the dance world), “I’m Beautiful” had all the earmarks of becoming the crossover hit of the ‘90s.

But the single, which was released late last year, never made it out of the dance scene for a variety of marketing reasons--no small frustration for the duo of Brinsley Evans, 27, and E.V. Mystique, 31.

It wasn’t the first time the pair had seen a potential hit slip through their fingers.

A year before “I’m Beautiful,” Uncanny Alliance’s “I Got My Education” was the biggest dance hit in New York. The problem then was that the duo didn’t yet have a record deal. Their demo tape of the song had fallen into the hands of local deejays and was widely bootlegged.

By the time their official version of the song was released by A&M; early last year, it was too late. The buzz had passed and deejays were already looking ahead to the next Uncanny Alliance record.

The pair and A&M; are now hoping that the third time is truly the charm. They’ve just put the finishing touches on their new single, “Everybody Up,” a rich slice of state-of-the-art dance fare due May 3. An album will follow in June.

The most obvious counterpart to Uncanny Alliance is Deee-Lite, the New York trio best known for its 1992 hit “Groove Is in the Heart.” Where Deee-Lite merged club grooves with idealistic, ‘60s-style politics, however, Uncanny Alliance offers a more biting and sometimes somber look at the world.

“The thing that really sets Brinsley and E.V. apart is the way they combine all these different elements into a compelling whole,” says Manny Lehman, director of A&R; for A&M;’s dance department. “They have a hard-edged street/club sensibility that comes straight from the underground. The music is just a little to the left of center, a touch artsy, but still legitimate club music.”

Uncanny Alliance’s story began seven years ago when Evans and Mystique met in New York’s legendary, now defunct house music club the Paradise Garage. He was a college student and she was a hairdresser, and neither was planning a career in music until they met.

Evans’ Jamaican parents had not been especially musical, and the keyboardist-lyricist, who always wanted to be an entertainer, didn’t think specifically of a career in music until meeting the Flushing-born, Hollis-raised Mystique. Like her partner, she comes from a family with no particular bent for music.

Though Evans grew up listening to AM radio, being influenced by everyone from Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles to Quincy Jones and Ashford & Simpson, it was through the powerful house grooves of the Paradise that they found both their calling and their voices.

With a third friend from that club, they signed a development deal with Columbia in 1991. When that deal fell through a year later, Evans and Mystique formed Uncanny Alliance and recorded the infamous demo of “I Got My Education.” With its irresistible groove, playful vibe and attitude-drenched cries of “Miss Thing, Miss Thing,” the record overflowed with the influence of the Paradise.

The club was host to the most diverse elements of the city, a home for all races and every degree of sexuality, with house music--the bass-heavy, groove-driven music epitomized by mainstream hits such as Technotronic’s “Pump Up the Jam”--the glue that held it all together. That brand of cultural eclecticism is effortlessly reflected in both the lyrics and music of Uncanny Alliance.

The duo’s songs speak of wearying, dead-end jobs and the need for weekend release. They talk of the chore of trying to “find yourself” when you’re not sure you have the tools for the hunt.

In their songs, they juggle a natural warmth and compassion with a socially mandated steely facade, viewing the world with the jaded eye that is more prominent in rap and alternative music, but diffusing tensions--and finding common ground--through wickedly dry humor.

Their talent was immediately apparent back in that 1992 demo of “I Got My Education,” a wry, tongue-in-cheek tale of an arrogant club kid’s fall into unemployment and homelessness.

Looking back at how the bootleg copies undercut the single’s commercial chances, Evans says: “I wouldn’t say I was angry. It was taking so long for us to come out with the real record and there were so many cassettes passed around that it was kind of inevitable.

“When it happened, I was pissed off for about a day but after that we said, ‘OK, let’s move on,’ and we handled it with humor.

“But it’s sad that we live in a world where (bootlegging) is a reality, where you would actually expect to be ripped off like that.”

When Uncanny Alliance returned late last year with “I’m Beautiful Dammit!,” the pair lived up to all the early expectations.

Where much of popular dance music exists on a purely giddy, surface level, “I’m Beautiful” had an air of longing, melancholy and even a dash of anger that fleshed out its grooves.

The single was embraced by Top 40 radio stations all across Eastern and Southern markets even before the record had a chance to catch on in clubs. But that early pop success proved a mixed blessing.

Despite reaching No. 2 on the Billboard magazine club chart, the record never made the leap onto the more significant pop charts. It did well enough in East Coast dance clubs to earn its high Billboard ranking.

But somewhere along the line, club deejays nationwide, perhaps put off by its initial pop success, became resistant to the track. Without their solid support, the record did a crash-and-burn on radio. Having failed to establish a strong enough dance base nationwide, it never moved beyond its status as a regional hit. “We’re starting to get in a trickle of calls from deejays who are just discovering the record, or who are playing it again, and the response has been amazing,” says Lehman, the man who signed the team to A&M.;

In contrast to “Beautiful’s” layers of meaning, the new “Everybody Up” pays tribute to the dance floor’s power of escapism, with no underlying messages.

Lyrically, the record simply exhorts the listener--in classic club tradition--to throw “hands in the air, now, shake” and to “pump it up, wear it out, do it up.”

Musically, however, it’s much more ambitious. Lifting from the classy end of disco (think the Salsoul Orchestra or Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra), Uncanny Alliance delivers an infectious, exuberant concoction by stirring in the harder-edged percussion that has become so popular in dance music recently and adding spacey synthesizer effects and a throbbing, shifting groove.

“It’s really all about simplicity,” says Mystique when describing the song. “The character I am in this song is what Brinsley and I call the military party girl. We’re not making people look at anything. Where the other two singles told stories, this one is simply about getting out there on the dance floor. It’s about letting go of your inhibitions.”

That distinction is an important one because it sets “Everybody Up” apart from the rest of the pair’s just-completed album, “The Groove Won’t Bite.”

The album is populated with characters struggling with feelings of isolation and self-doubt. But instead of wails of anguish or self-pity, you find lacerating humor, mock-diva attitude and a generous spirit.

It’s this dose of reality in the mix that clarifies Evans’ stance that, despite his allegiance to the dance world, Uncanny Alliance’s themes and concerns aren’t all that different from those of artists such as Pearl Jam or Snoop Doggy Dogg.

“I love their artistry and I understand where the anger comes from,” he says. “It’s just not my thing. It’s not my approach. But Snoop Doggy Dogg’s album, on one level I thought, was absolutely brilliant.

“On another level I thought it was sad, very sad. I can listen to it and understand where they are coming from, but it’s a really sad place to be coming from.”

Adds Mystique: “A lot of people are very unhappy in the world right now. You can just see a sadness in their faces; it’s like they can’t smile or anything. I think a lot of it comes from people who don’t feel good about themselves, so they want to give other people a hard time instead of trying to find a little happiness or comfort in life.

“There’s a humorous side to what we do because we believe if you don’t laugh through life, you’re gonna end up crying. If you don’t change the way you think about things within yourself, you can drown in negativity. Our music acknowledges the dark stuff, we just don’t give in to it.”