Big tip! Erratum Musical, Studio Forum and C.A.R.E. are very pleased to announce the release of this groundbreaking historical LP from 1976 recorded in Los Angeles. First ever recordings of sounds by Serge Modular System + Z’EV + Will Jackson!

TO was founded in 1976 in San Francisco by Will E. Jackson (1945-2019) & Stefan “Z’EV” Weisser(1951-2017), occasionally performing under the code name “Center for Inter-Species communication”. The real missing link between works by California’s modular synthesizers pioneers, the industrial music explosion of the mid 70s and the early new age interspecies communication protocols. This is a mesmerizing trip record at its finest, which original masters on magnetic tapes have just been rediscovered. 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 with 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 now in France at C.A.R.E. since 2023) and broadcast the electronic sounds on underwater speakers, recording these broadcasts as well as the reciprocating songs of the whales that came to investigate. 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. That record has been restored with the original masters, whose magnetic tapes have just been rediscovered. These miraculous encounters constitute the basic sound material of TO: communication by invocation.

TO ceased its activities during the summer of 1977. Will Jackson joined 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.

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 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.