The convergence of rock and jazz towards the aesthetics of the avantgarde made avantgarde music less alien to general audiences, at least in cities like New York and San Francisco. A curious audience flocked to alternative clubs to listen to electronic and electroacoustic concerts. In 1993 Charles Amirkhanian and Jim Newman founded the yearly Other Minds festival of avantgarde music. From 1994 to 1997 Gino Robair held a weekly event of improvised music at the Hotel Utah called "The Dark Circle Lounge".

The experiments spanned a wide spectrum, and their interdisciplinary cross-pollination of genres pushed the boundaries of imagination and expanded the definition of "sound art".

Matt Heckert, a member of the Survival Research Laboratories in 1980-88, formed the Mechanical Sound Orchestra consisting of robotic musical performers, which debuted in 1989 and for which he composed the concert piece "Turbulence" (1995).

Bob Ostertag, one of the earliest free-jazz improvisors at electronic tape manipulation and now a virtuoso of solo improvised music for sampler, moved to San Francisco in 1988 and sculpted "Sooner Or Later" (1991), a set of variations on the crying of a Salvadorean boy, and created the string quartet "All The Rage" (1991) by sampling music, string instruments and a political demonstration.

Laetitia Sonami, who moved from France to the Bay area in 1978 to study at Mills College graduating in 1980, invented in 1991 an electronic glove that responded to movement by generating sounds which she used for live performances (which she refused to record).

The veteran choreographer Margaret Jenkins choreographed "Woman Window Square” (1991), scored by Paul Dresher's librettist Rinde Eckert, and Eckert ventured into composing operas himself with "The Gardening of Thomas D" (1992).

Erling Wold created multimedia operas such as "A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil" (1995), based on a Max Ernst collage novel.

Gino Robair played thrash-jazz in the Splatter Trio and conceived "I Norton" (2007), an ill-defined opera on the life of Emperor Norton that was scored for any number of free improvisers, who can also be non-musicians.

Crawling with Tarts, the duo of composer Michael Gendreau and Suzanne Dycus, composed its "surface noise operas" out of field recordings and studio manipulations, a program refined on "Grand Surface Noise Opera Nrs 3 (Indian Ocean Ship) And 4 (Drum Totem)" (1995), the former scored for four turntables and the latter scored for turntables and percussion.

Black vocalist Pamela Z (born Pamela Brooks), who had relocated to San Francisco in 1985, adopted Diamanda Galas' format of operatic vocal acrobatics in the context of electronic music, and staged multi-media performances that explored language such as the evening-length "Parts of Speech" (premiered in December 1998).

The peripatetic Ellen Fullman, who had become legendary for the droning minimalism of her long string instruments, finally settled in Berkeley in 2003 and collaborated with local musicians.

San Francisco's "modern primitivism" movement was best represented by a multi-national artistic commune that emerged with the music of Lights In A Fat City, centered upon Canadian electronic composer Kenneth Newby, British-born didjeridoo player Stephen Kent and percussionist Eddy Sayer, best documented on "Sound Column" (1993). That project evolved into Trance Mission, formed by Newby and Kent with Club Foot Orchestra's clarinetist Beth Custer and percussionist John Loose, documented on "Trance Mission" (1993), a dense maelstrom of jazz improvisation, transcendental exotica and electronic ambient music. Kent also formed the Beasts Of Paradise with harpist Barbara Imhoff while Newby crafted "Ecology Of Souls" (1993), another peak of exotic and exoteric electronic music.

Matmos, the electronic duo of Drew Daniel and Martin Schmidt, pioneered the use of "organic" samples (noises, not instruments) to compose dance music. "Matmos" (1997) summarized four decades of electronic music, from musique concrete of the 1950s to techno. "A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure" (2001) was created out of sounds found in hospitals, and "Ultimate Care 2" (2016) was entirely composed out of sounds of their washing machine.

The oddly named project Irr. App. (Ext.), the brainchild of digital composer Matt Waldron, merged musique concrete and electronic soundsculpting in the albums dedicated to Wilhelm Reich, such as "Ozeanische Gefuhle" (2001) and "Kreiselwelle" (2009).

Miya Masaoka, a koto improviser, straddled the border between jazz, classical, electronic and Japanese music with "While I Was Walking I Heard A Sound" (2003) for mixed choir of 100-150 voices and mixed cello meditations, bird chirping and airplane drones on "For Birds, Planes & Cello" (2005).

Dan Plonsey (Mills College class of 1988) composed music for unusual instrumentation, such as "What Leave Behind" (2003), a concerto for guitar and Toychestra, and "Kabaddi Season" (2015) for microtonal saxophones and drum-machine samples. Toychestra was formed in 1996, an all-women ensemble playing toy musical instruments and various noise-making objects.

Eric Glick-Rieman was a virtuoso of the prepared electric piano, as documented on the chamber piece "Trilogy From The Outside", composed between 2002 and 2008, that also features custom-made instruments and found objects.

Wayne Vitale, who had graduated from UC Berkeley in 1982 and had been a member of Gamelan Sekar Jaya since inception, composed music for gamelan ensemble, notably the multimedia gamelan opera "Makrokosma Bali" (2011), co-composed with a Balinese master.

Meanwhile, jazz found itself pulled in multiple directions: avant-garde experimentation, rock, hip-hop, ethnic traditions and free jazz.

Notably, San Francisco was the birthplace of the "acid jazz" movement, which blended funk, hip-hop and jazz, a style pioneered in 1991 by the Broun Fellinis and by Alphabet Soup. The golden age of acid-jazz started in 1993 when White guitarist Charlie Hunter, a former musical partner of White rapper Michael Franti and member of his rap-rock group Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy (1992), formed the bass-less trio documented on "Charlie Hunter Trio" (1993). President's Breakfast, a White ensemble assembled by Bill Langton, expanded the idea to dub, funk and hip-hop, on "President's Breakfast" (1989).

Ted Gioia, who had graduated from both Stanford (in English) and Oxford (in Philosophy) and was also a pianist, wrote "The History of Jazz" (1997), which would become the bestselling history of jazz.

Running the gamut between the two extremes of folk-rock and punk-rock the Bay Area's rock music enjoyed in the 1990s arguably its most creative era.

Berkeley became a major center of rock music thanks to its record stores, and actually its "used record" stores: Leopold Records had been founded by UC Berkeley students in 1969 (and in 1973 was even used as the first public terminal for Community Memory, the first public computer bulletin board system) and Rasputin Records had been around since 1971, and Amoeba Music opened in 1990. These were giant stores with few rivals in the world. In San Francisco the record store for underground psychedelia and metal was Aquarius Records, located in the Noe Valley neighborhood.

The last gasp of Bay Area's punk-rock was Berkeley's "Gilman Street" scene, initiated by Mr T Experience and cashed in by Green Day with their album "Dookie" (1994). A variant was ska-punk, represented by Rancid and by the Dance Hall Crashers, fronted by two female singers. Zen Guerrilla blended punk and blues on their roaring "Positronic Raygun" (1998).

Primus mixed heavy-metal, funk, jazz and music-hall in the goofy instrumental workouts of the album "Frizzle Fry" (1990).

The philosophy and sound of the hippies got reincarnated in Anton Newcombe's Brian Jonestown Massacre, whose albums such as "Methodrone" (1995) were encyclopedias of psychedelic music.

Stoner-rock thrived in the Bay Area. Sleep bridged doom-metal and stoner-rock with the slow, lumbering hour-long jam of "Jerusalem" (1997). Weakling concocted a twisted tribute to Scandinavian black metal with the trancey monoliths of "Dead As Dreams" (2000). Sacramento's Deftones were the local heroes of grunge starting with "Adrenaline" (1995).

Several groups operated at the confluence of industrial music, acid-rock and punk-rock. Oxbow concocted an atonal free-form collage on "King of the Jews" (1991). Noise was also the output of Mason Jones' experiments released under the monikers Trance and Subarachnoid Space, notably the latter's "Almost Invisible" (1997). Mandible Chatter, Mirza, and many others offered different takes on the idea.

The neo-Dada collective Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, heirs to the theatrical madness of the Residents, produced albums such as "Lovelyville" (1991) and "Mother Of All Saints" (1992) that were chaotic super-collages of musical debris.

The Thessalonians (featuring keyboardists Kim Cascone, Don Falcone and Paul Neyrinck) performed live improvisations for electronic and acoustic instruments, documented on "Soulcraft" (1993), that were the ultimate cybernetic-psychedelic ragas. Kim Cascone, in particular, mined the border between ambient music and musique concrete disguised as Heavenly Music Corporation and PGR.

The gothic clubs of the SOMA district reveled in the music of bands such as Switchblade Symphony and Children Of The Apocalypse. Death Guild, a club opened in 1993 by David "DJ Decay" King, and modeled after London's gothic clubs, defined the look of gothic and industrial music.

Neurosis added keyboards and samples to speed-metal and hardcore, resulting in the spasmodic tension of "Through Silver In Blood" (1996). Their side-project Tribes of Neurot ventured into ambient-psychedelic music on "Static Migration " (1998).

Idiot Flesh were both a Dada-inspired rock cabaret and a colorful commune of dancers and noise-makers. Their shows, performed in outrageous costumes, mixed puppets, psychedelic lights, pyrotechnics, visuals and theatre. Closer to them was an a-capella women's trio, Charming Hostess (Jewlia Eisenberg, Marika Hughes, Cynthia Taylor), whose songs incorporated all sorts of genres accompanied by chamber ensembles. Jewlia Eisenberg's "Trilectic" (2001) contains her ambitious "Trilectic Suite", a tour de force of multiplied a-cappella vocals. In 2011 she premiered her interactive sound sculpture about sex and magic titled "The Bowls Project" inside an environment designed by architect Michael Ramage with video art by Shezad Dawood.

San Francisco, with such a long tradition of psychedelic music and electronic music, became a hotbed of post-rock. Miss Murgatroid, the brainchild of accordionist Alicia Rose, blended psychedelia, raga and minimalism on "Methyl Ethyl Key Tones" (1993). Lowercase staged suicidal psychodramas via the slow, lengthy dirges of "Kill The Lights" (1997). Tin Hat Trio borrowed from jazz, folk, avantgarde and world-music for "Memory Is An Elephant" (1999). Species Being penned the sonic odyssey "Yonilicious" (1998), and their offshoots Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Book Of Knots linked them with Idiot Flesh and Tin Hat Trio via violinist Carla Kihlstedt. Tarentel sculpted the desolate soundscapes for synth and guitar of "From Bone To Satellite" (1999) and its offshoot Howard Hello offered music for a percussion-less trio on "Howard Hello" (2002).

At the other end of the spectrum there were folkish singer-songwriters such as Smog, the project of Bill Callahan, a solemn poet of loneliness on "Sewn To The Sky" (1990) who progressed to chamber pop on "Wild Love" (1995). Hannah Marcus wed manic introspection with a multitude of styles on "Faith Burns" (1998) Richard Buckner pursued "outlaw country" with the concept album "Devotion And Doubt" (1997).

Stephen Malkmus' Pavement from Stockton were the vanguard of the "lo-fi" movement, delivering in a deliberately amateurish style the songs of "Slanted And Enchanted" (1992) and "Crooked Rain Crooked Rain" (1993).

The Red House Painters, an acoustic quartet led by the introverted poet Mark Kozelek, penned the moribund dirges of "Down Colorful Hill" (1992) and the impressionistic watercolors of "Red House Painters" (1993), perhaps the apex of the entire post-hippie scene.

Deerhoof's avant-pop balanced cacophony and melody on "The Man, The King, The Girl" (1997).

San Francisco's White hip-hop crews produced some of the most virulent agit-prop rap of all time: the Beatnigs, with symphonic collages "Beatnigs" (1988), who evolved into the Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy, with "Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury" (1992), and Consolidated with "The Myth Of Rock" (1990).

If the 1990s were a particularly inventive era for rock music, they were equally a period of remarkable creativity in hip-hop.

An influential hip-hop collective of White kids was born at UC Davis: SoleSides (later Quannum). Blackalicious embraced a lyrical and nostalgic style on "Nia" (2000), while DJ Shadow (born Josh Davis in San Jose), a legendary turntablist, became the leading artist of instrumental hip-hop, and basically bridged classical music and hip-hop music on "Endtroducing" (1996), recorded at the San Francisco studio of Dan Nakamura, the first album entirely composed on the sampler, and nonetheless lushly orchestrated. Dan Nakamura, a disc-jockey and a virtuoso of the mixing board, sculpted Dr Octagon's "Dr Octagon" (1996), a collaboration with rapper Kool Keith (of Ultramagnetic MCs fame) and with turntablist Richard "Qbert" Quitevis (of Invisibl Skratch Piklz), and the science-fiction concept album "Deltron 3030" (2000), with rapper Del Tha Funkee Homosapien and turntablist Kid Koala (Eric San).

Another influential dj collective, Invisibl Skratch Piklz, consisted of turntablists from the Bay Area and the Sacramento area of Latino and Filipino descent, whose aesthetic manifesto was "Invasion of the Octopus People" (1996): Richard "DJ Qbert" Quitevis, who also released the instrumental sci-fi concept album "Wave Twisters" (1998), "Mixmaster" Mike Schwartz, who also released "Anti-Theft Device" (1998) with producer Naut Humon (of Rhythm And Noise), Philippines-native Dave "D-Styles" Cuasito of the "Beat Junkies" crew, who debuted solo with "Phantazmagorea" (2002), a collection of songs composed entirely from scratching, Ritche "Yogafrog" Desuasido, "Mixmaster Mike" Schwartz, Jon "Shortkut" Cruz, Lou "DJ Disk" Quintanilla, etc.

Oakland was the headquarters of most Black rappers. The main acts were the crew Digital Underground, the brainchild of Greg "Shock G" Jacobs and the main hip-hop purveyors of George Clinton's eccentric "funkadelia", notably on "Sex Packets" (1990); and the rapper Del tha Funkee Homosapien (Teren Delvon Jones), a member of the "Hieroglyphics" posse, also influenced by Clinton's groups. The Mystic Journeymen established Oakland's collective "Living Legends", which eventually moved to Los Angeles.

Live Human, a trio led by Latino turntablist Carlos "DJ Quest" Aguilar, adopted a technique of live sampling that continuously reinvented their compositions during live performances. The improvised music of "Live Human Featuring DJ Quest" (1997) marked the real intersection of hip-hop and jazz music.

Jhno (John Eichenseer), a disc-jockey, offered a bold fusion of ethnic, ambient, jazz and techno music on "Understand" (1995).

Assembled in Oakland by songwriters and producers Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy, the Black female quartet En Vogue rejuvenated the concept of the "girl group" for the video age with their second album "Funky Divas" (1992).

San Francisco also became a modest center of acid techno and house music, its psychedelic hedonism bridging the hippie and the rave cultures. Disc jockeys and producers included: Single Cell Orchestra (Miguel Fierro), Young American Primitive (Greg Scanavino), High Lonesome Sound System (Michael Kandel and Tom Chasteen), and Hardkiss Brothers (the trio of Gavin Bieber, Robert Cameron, Scott Friedel), whose "Magick Sounds Of The Underground" (1992) was perhaps the best testament of the movement. Freaky Chakra (born Daum Bentley) adapted electronic dance music (techno and house) to acid-rock on "Lowdown Motivator" (1995). The 1990s were the age of the "raves", all-night dance parties often held illegally in abandoned warehouses.