SAN FRANCISCO -- As director Iara Lee began the editing process

for her second full-length feature film, "Modulations," she made a

crucial realization.

Documenting the history of electronic music from Luigi Russolo and his

"Art of Noises" in 1913 to the techno beats pulsing in clubs today -- in

straight chronological order -- was not necessarily the best way to tell

the story.

"Music is very non-linear," said Lee, 31, sitting in her hotel suite.

She was clad in a futuristic outfit consisting of a purple plaid jacket,

purple pants, running shoes and thick, plastic-framed glasses with an

amber tint. "A lot of these artists are parallel to each other, and to

illustrate that, I went back and forth and cut and pasted. I didn't even

go by genres or countries."

So she chose a different tact.

Slated for a Sept. 4 release with a soundtrack to follow in October,

"Modulations" traces the development of electronic music by splicing

together a fast-paced string of interview snippets with pulsating

electronic beats. The sounds come from a wide spectrum of artists,

including hip-hop forefather Afrika Bambaataa, jungle innovators Goldie

& Rob Playford and Eurodisco diva Donna Summer.

Lee spent much of 1997 hopping across the globe to interview dozens of

musicians and technological innovators. They ranged from Holger Czukay

of the German underground prog-rock band Can, Moog synthesizer inventor

Robert Moog and Genesis P. Orridge of avant-garde trance-rockers Psychic

TV to more contemporary pop-oriented acts, such as Moby, Prodigy and the

Invisibl Skratch Piklz.

Artist interest in the project gradually progressed, said Lee, with a

snowball effect taking over as some of the early interviews began coming

through. "At the beginning of the project, people didn't choose to

support it, but then, [it was] 'Hey, she even spoke to Karlheinz

Stockhausen and Holger Czukay from Can'" said Lee. "I interviewed Meat

Beat Manifesto and Liam from Prodigy was like, 'Oh, they're my heroes.'"

Inspired by the patchwork scavenging techniques employed by electronic

artists as they pursue the perfect beat, sample or loop for their work,

Lee created her film in a similar manner.

"It's what musicians are doing now," said Lee. "Interferences and noise

are by design ... [in order] to come up with something unusual. [For

'Modulations,'] I tried to take all the things from the past and

recombine them in different ways. I think that's what is happening in

music, and it's a little bit of a reflection of the culture at-large."

Lee's approach impressed one of her most significant interviewees,

Robert Moog. "Well, the evolution of culture is so complex, and subject

to so many influences, that presenting it in a non-linear way really

makes the most sense," he wrote in an e-mail. "With 6 billion people

speaking hundreds of languages, and everybody having access to each

other through the Internet and the electronic media, things just don't

happen in a straight line any more -- if they ever did!"

What emerges from the sometimes dizzying picture cobbled together by Lee

is an understanding of how techno music has moved forward through the

years. Musicians who had previously been dismissed for their inorganic

approach are now being acknowledged for their work.

"To me, that means that electronic music has gone beyond some novelty or

something technically freakish," said Moog, "and is now an important

part of our musical mainstream."

The complete track listing for the Modulations Volume 1 album:

Donna Summer ("I Feel Love); Afrika Bambaataa ("Planet Rock"); Juan

Atkins/Model 500 ("No UFO's Remix"); LFO ("Simon From Sydney"); Derrick

May ("Strings of Life"); Jesse Saunders ("Yeah"); Aphrodite ("Amazon

2-King of the Beats"); Panacea ("Stormbringer"); Goldie & Rob Playford

("The Shadow"); Ryojl Ikeda ("Luxus 1-3"); Coldcut (Atomic Moog 2000");

and To Rococo Rot ("Kritische Masse 1").