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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.

Ten Doorways into the World of Zeus B. Held

...Part Two of 'The Enabler'

In the first part of this portrait, I tried to describe Zeus B. Held not through a conventional career summary, but through a recurring idea: his remarkable ability to make things possible.

He has spent decades moving between roles — keyboard player, producer, arranger, composer and sonic architect — yet none of those descriptions quite captures the restless curiosity behind the work. Zeus rarely imposes a single signature sound. Instead, he listens, shifts the coordinates and helps artists discover something in their music that may already have been there, waiting to be uncovered.

But an essay can only take you so far. Eventually, the records have to speak.

The following selection is therefore not a greatest-hits collection, nor an attempt to reduce a vast and unusually varied career to ten essential recordings. Think of it instead as a listening companion to The Enabler: ten entrances into different corners of the same musical mind.

Some doors lead towards electronic art-pop, others towards space disco, industrial rhythm, international synth-pop or psychedelic exploration. A few reveal Zeus the producer; others bring us closer to the musician and composer behind the controls.

No playlist can fully explain Zeus B. Held. His work moves effortlessly between Krautrock, disco, synth-pop, post-punk, electronic experimentation and productions that seem to belong to several worlds at once.

Still, every journey has to begin somewhere.

These ten recordings do not attempt to tell the whole story. They simply open ten different doors into a musical universe that has always preferred possibilities over categories...

1. Gina X Performance – No G.D.M.

The point where art, fashion, electronics and dance music collided. Even today it sounds remarkably modern, introducing many of the ideas that would later define European electronic pop.


2. Fashion – Streetplayer (Mechanik)

A masterclass in pre-MIDI studio production. Mechanical precision meets human groove, proving that analogue machines could already dance long before computers took over.


3. Rockets – On The Road Again

One of the great space-disco records. Zeus transforms a familiar rock song into something futuristic, playful and strangely emotional through vocoder, synthesisers and immaculate production.


4. Dead Or Alive – Misty Circles

Before Hi-NRG conquered the charts, Zeus helped shape a darker, moodier electronic dance sound. This is Pete Burns before global fame—and already unmistakably unique.


5. Die Krupps – Risk

An important milestone on the road towards Electronic Body Music. Industrial textures become danceable without losing their edge.


6. Men Without Hats – Pop Goes The World

Pure international synth-pop craftsmanship. Bright, polished and irresistibly melodic, demonstrating Zeus’s ability to serve the song rather than the technology.


7. Pete Wylie – Sinful! (Song of the Sinful Angel)

An expansive, almost operatic remix from London, balancing ambition with accessibility. Another example of Zeus treating the studio itself as an instrument.


8. Dream Control – Kant Can Dance

Perhaps the clearest proof that curiosity never retires. Philosophy, electronics, psychedelic textures and groove collide in a collaboration that could only have happened because categories were ignored.


9. Zeus B. Held – Musik, Music, Musique

More than a song. More than a title. It feels like a personal manifesto: music as a universal language that technology can expand without ever replacing its humanity.


10. Zeus B. Held – The Fool On The Hill

An unexpected Beatles interpretation that reveals another side of Zeus entirely. Quiet, reflective and beautifully arranged, it reminds us that reinvention often begins with careful listening.

Read Jochen's conversation with Zeus B. Held... CLICK HERE

Pay a visit to Jochen's record label - Bellerophon Records CLICK HERE