Japan in the sixties was surf guitar mad, enough so to spawn its own sub-genre, Eleki. Upon their first tour of Japan the Ventures became superstars, and soon enough the Eleki Bumu was in full swing, fusing the Venture's surf guitars with the melodies and sometimes instrumentation of traditional Japanese folk music.
Takeshi Terauchi's mother was a music teacher who played the traditonal Japanese stringed instrument the shamisen, the strings of which are typically played with a more vigorous staccato attack than those on a guitar. Terauchi himself took up the guitar at the age of five and applying his mother's shamisen technique to his own guitar playing he was well on the road to becoming Eleki's undisputed master with his distinctive style. His style would evolve considerably over the years, often incorporating elements of heavy psychedelia.
This post is intended to serve two purposes. Firstly to draw your attention specifically to this excellent 2023 collection of Terauchi's work issued by French label 180 g. It's a fine companion piece to the more expansive Big Beat Records Nippon Guitars collection which helped introduce Terauchi to a wider Western audience in 2011 and there's not much material doubled up between the two so you should own both.
Secondly, although Nippon Guitars was a revelatory release at the time, Terauchi's back catalogue otherwise remained elusive beyond Youtube streams and torrented vinyl rips. Fortunately this is no longer the case with 180 g following up Eleshi Bushi in 2025 with reissues of six of his most well regarded albums from the sixties and early seventies which can all be had in full through their Bandcamp page here.
Dig in, it really is a treasure trove of inspirational guitar music.
