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Jochen Oberlack is a German writer, radio producer, musician and independent label owner behind the long-running project Rübenrock. His work explores pop music from its margins—studio culture, forgotten records and the intersections of art, technology and commerce.

Jochen’s Picks

Six early synth records that opened the door

Before synthesizers became part of everyday pop production, they existed in a strange, experimental twilight zone — somewhere between laboratory, studio and science fiction.

These records don’t form a canon. They are simply markers along the way — moments where electronic sound stopped being an effect and started becoming a world of its own.

1. Beaver & Krause – Gandharva (1971)

Not an album you listen to so much as one you enter — where electronics feel less futuristic than quietly ritualistic.


2. Mort Garson – Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds (1967)

A concept that shouldn’t work but does: astrology, spoken word and Moog textures colliding into something strangely sincere.


3. Morton Subotnick – Silver Apples of the Moon (1967)

Not psychedelic in the usual sense, but mind-expanding all the same — music that treats sound as a living process.


4. The United States of America – The United States of America (1968)

Electronic colour splashed across a rock band — oscillators and ring modulation at work, before synthesizers had fully arrived.


5. White Noise – An Electric Storm (1969)

A reminder that early electronics could be violent, playful and unsettling all at once — nothing polite about it.


6. Tod Dockstader – Eight Electronic Pieces / Quatermass (1961/1964)

Organised sound created in solitude — tape machines as architecture rather than mere technology.


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Read Jochen's first post for Fruits de Mer... CLICK HERE