Virtual Musicians : At an Irvine club, young adults gather to network and share art made with computers. At home, they create and communicate on-line.

Dancers underneath a canopy of green laser beams pulsate to bass-driven, computer-generated sounds. Their movement is minimal, even constrained, inspired by restless, repeating rhythms that are hypnotically primal.

Every Thursday night at Lost City, a once-a-week club at Metropolis in Irvine, a few hundred young adults gather to share in a culture thriving throughout the global village--communicating and creating new art via computers. It’s their only respite from the mainstream nightclub circuit of retro disco and New Wave. Here, techies keep plugged into the relentless pursuit of tomorrow.

At Lost City, when devotees ask, “What’s your sign?” it has nothing to do with zodiacal prophecies, but refers to someone’s computer sign-on, an address on the Internet or another on-line network.

It’s also here that a smaller community of mostly twentysomethings, who have conversed via modems, can finally connect in the flesh. They exchange discs or groove to the latest in deep house, techno, industrial and tribal music.

Talk usually revolves around the music they are producing, much of it in home studios full of synthesizers, digital mixers, sequencers and samplers, all controlled by their personal computers. “We’re riding on the edge, trying to incorporate all that’s brand new into our art,” says cyber-musician Richard (“SPRKtronic”) Sihilling, 29.

During the acid house era of 1989, he incorporated a keyboard sampler into his work as a deejay for clubs and raves.

He’s never looked back.

“It’s about interacting with machinery, plus being on the cutting edge of technology. Technology can’t progress fast enough for me,” says Sihilling, who put his deejay career on hold in 1990 to focus more on computers and composing music with his collaborator and girlfriend, Julie Ida, 23. They perform under the name Dimension 23.

The couple spend much of their time in a corner of their Costa Mesa apartment, surrounded by the tools of their craft. There, with friend Ruben Steavins, 25, (a.k.a. Ruben Blue and Odyssey) of Santa Ana, they laid down a dance track six months laced with Ida’s siren song.

The number, as well as a solo by Steavins, ended up on the “Fataldata” compact disc ($10 through the computer (imersive@calon.com), $14 in stores), a showcase of computer-generated dance music by Orange County artists produced by Brian Natonski, 27, of Mission Viejo.

Natonski has made the CD available over cyber space (users can sample and order the CD via an electronic address) and in some stores, rather than signing with an established label. The reason: He wanted to exercise total control over the project, which includes two of his tracks under the moniker Gearwhore (inspired by the grunt work he had to do to purchase much of his computer gear). He leaves today for Bangkok to meet with Buddhist monks and start a distributorship for his fledgling label in Asia. It’s the most fun he’s had with computers, he said, since getting busted in junior high for hacking the school’s mainframe system.

“Fataldata” is another entry in a market that releases about 300 titles a week worldwide, many created in home studios, according to deejay and composer “Simply” Jeff Adachi, 27, co-owner of Mr. Freecloud’s Mixing Lab in Costa Mesa, a record shop that caters to techno music deejays. Adachi, a veteran deejay of the rave scene who produces music under his home-based label, Orbital Transmissions, sees the culture thriving.

Agrees Sihilling: “There’s a whole new type of underground emerging.”

Because advanced technology equipment is more affordable than in the past, more people are able to buy personal computers and build home studios.

“There’s a greater number of deejays and musicians now living in Orange County who are producing in their homes and getting noticed,” says Joachim Vance, 25, host of “Riders of the Plastic Groove” Fridays from 9 p.m. to midnight on KUCI-FM (88.9), a radio station on the UC Irvine campus. He counts about a dozen home-grown labels in Costa Mesa alone.

On his weekly program, the computer science graduate invites guest deejays to join him on air. In two years, he has featured more than 80 disc jockeys, some from as far as Canada and Finland.

Shows are frequently simulcast live from the campus pub. Dimension 23 will kick off the new year Friday.

Vance co-founded a listserv--an electronic mailing list where messages go out to subscribers--dubbed “So Cal Raves” to serve as a forum for promoting and discussing clubs and parties (once affectionately called “raves,” the term has fallen out of vogue due to its mainstreaming and has yet to be replaced). The list, originating now from a computer at UC San Diego, boasts about 300 subscribers, one-quarter from Orange County.

For those who eschew crowds, people can meet through computers, creating virtual reality nightclubs. In December, revelers at a rave in Germany partied in cyber space by sending electronic messages to people around the world. An even grander party took place from Internet stations at Plantasia, the all-night New Year’s Eve fest at the National Orange Complex in San Bernardino that entertained more than 6,000 techies all night with the latest artists and virtual-reality booths and games.

Enter virtual bands, groups of musicians around the globe who communicate through E-mail. A deejay in Japan can sample part of a track and send it to a musician in Dusseldorf, who then sends it to someone in Santa Ana. The final link in this international chain can produce the soundtrack on a hard drive and debut it at a party.

Cyber musicians are so enthusiastic about their collaborations that most don’t worry about someone down the line taking full artistic or financial credit for the work. Trust is an integral part of this counterculture, says Dennis Barton, 31, a hi-fi and video equipment technician who has released several homemade tracks as Paper Boy 2000. He met a singer for his latest project, a hard trance trio called Skylab 2000, through such networking.

(Skylab 2000 will perform at a party open to the public at Dr. Freecloud’s on Jan. 28.)

“It’s great to be able to trade info with other people and network in every sense of the word,” says Barton, who lives in Costa Mesa.

One drawback in cyber music is that technology can’t always deliver an ideal product because not every virtual studio junkies’ equipment is compatible. But optimists say that will come in time.

It’s about “empowerment of the individual through computers,” Vance says. “It’s not about being a rock star, but it is about celebrating the individual whether you’re a deejay, a musician or a dancer. It’s what’s happening now.”

To Get Plugged In

Here are electronic addresses for more information:

* To subscribe to So Cal Raves, an interactive resource for information and discussion of the rave culture and events: (socal--raves--request@ucsd.edu). Send message “to subscribe to So Cal Raves.”

* To access a non-interactive listing of So Cal Raves via Mosaic, the program that helps you track information on the Internet: (https://kuci.cwis.uci.edu:8044/socal.html)

* To access a resource of rave-related activities nationwide via Mosaic: (https://www.hyperreel.com)

* To sample the “Fataldata” compact disc or order by mail: (imersive@calon.com) or, by telephone, (714) 452-0354.

* To reach Joachim Vance: (underdog@netcom.com)