'TO'

TO was founded in 1976 in San Francisco by Will E. Jackson (1945-2019) and Stefan “Z’EV” Weisser (1951-2017), occasionally performing under the code name “Center for Interspecies Communication”.

A collaborative effort, the heart of the TO project was heavily influenced by Will Jackson's participation in the inaugural 1975 Greenpeace V campaign to save the whales.
One of the objectives of the Greenpeace V expedition was to demonstrate the ability of cetaceans and humans to communicate through sound – an idea developed by Paul Spong and later perfected by Will's friend, John C. Lilly in his ''Project Janus''.
During the Greenpeace expedition against the barbarity of whaling off the coasts of Alaska, Will Jackson used his Serge#1 modular synthesizer (built under the supervision of Serge Tcherepnin at CalArts in 1973) and broadcast the electronic sounds on underwater speakers, recording these broadcasts as well as the reciprocating songs of the whales that came to investigate.
These miraculous encounters constitute the basic sound material of TO: communication by invocation.

TO’s commitment to developing the world’s knowledge and preservation of cetaceans would lead them to hold awareness concerts from California to Japan, performing at the Harumi Dome in Tokyo for the “Save the Seas” event against commercial whaling. During this historic event, TO went on to record more than 12 hours of live concert music in just two days...

TO ceased its activities during the summer of 1977.

Stefan Weisser then began his solitary adventure and soon after gave his first solo performance, “Sound of Wind and Limb”, with his ''Analog Acoustic Assemblege'' he devised for TO.
He created the pseudonym Z'EV and was instrumental in the conception of “industrial music” in the underground scene.

Will Jackson ed Ether Ship, a pioneering group of “sonic xenolinguistics,” created in 1972 by Willard van de Bogart and Lemon deGeorge. During this time, Will Jackson participated in several strange sound experiments including the legendary “Extraterrestrial Intelligence Ether Ship Transmission for Star Net Pilot Program”, which was recorded in the presence of Jacques Vallée in 1978.

Will Jackson and Stefan Weisser would reunite later that same year, one last time, for Ether Ship’s performance of “A Cosmic Journey”, filmed with Gary Schroeder's cutting-edge video synthesizer.

A symbolic melding of music and mission, TO has only ever released one vinyl during its existence, of which there are only a few dozen copies in the wild.