Nippon Guitars: Instrumental Surf, Eleki & Tsugaru Rock 1966-1974

The Dead Kennedys’ former lead singer Jello Biafra is a big fan. Reinvented Jap-rock historian Julian Cope has also expressed admiration for his earlier, rawer work. His name is Takeshi Terauchi, a guitarist and bandleader who, from the mid-60s onwards, offered up a defiantly Japanese take on the instrumental surf music heading across the Pacific from the US. Ter auc hi-p en ned songs with quintessentially Californian titles like ‘South Pier’ and ‘Summer Boogaloo’ sound both familiar and somehow alien. We know the language. It's the accent that's changed.

Cope has described Terauchi's guitar stylings as resembling some kind of ‘unique Japanese rage and raga.’ This is a precise observation, with Terauchi's wiry runs up and down the fretboard inhabiting the space between Dick Dale's furious, no-prisoners surf guitar and the flipped-out groove of Ananda Shankar's sitar. And he's able to shift identities without being noticed. One minute, he's playing it pretty straight as Hank Marvin; the next he's flailing around with all the counter-culture intensity of Jimi Hendrix. For all the era-specific psychedelic vibe, it wasn't all love and peace. Through his close control of his bands – the Bunnys and the Blue Jeans, who share Nippon Guitars’ 25 tracks – he was able to cement his position as Japan's premier alternative guitar hero.

As with much psychedelia, such a generous helping is something of an overdose for a listener who isn't tripping out. But, sampled sparingly, the free-ranging, six-stringed dexterity of Takeshi Terauchi remains both historically intriguing and, well, downright groovy.