Here’s the connective tissue as to how I stumbled upon Takseshi Terauchi, the premier guitarist of late 60s Japan, a purveyor of the surf sound made popular by The Ventures, who (if you believe the liner notes) were a bigger influence in post-war Japan than The Beatles. I was home on the couch, depressed and anxious, and I got an email announcing a repress of Terauchi’s first album with his backing band The Blue Jeans. Seeking to fill a gaping hole via media consumption I spent about 15 minutes checking out his music and instead settled on Eleki Bushi (1966-1974), an admittedly fantastic retrospective of the man’s style and technicality. Shockingly, I’m still massively depressed and anxious, but now I have some cool Japanese surf rock to serve as background music.

Is that glass half full?

This probably isn’t the most fair to Terauchi or his work, which is a fascinating time capsule of the Rockabiri movement that came out of Japan’s introduction to Western rock and rock, primarily through cinema. Terauchi got his start with a lot of covers from those movies, especially Elvis. But he soon captured a specific style of taking Eastern folk tunes and electrifying them with his ensemble, creating something fresh for the times. Albums like Let’s Go Eleki Bushi with the Blue Jeans and Seichou Terauchi Bushi with The Bunnys demonstrate how fully absorbed the sounds of Dick Dale are in Terauchi’s playing and song arrangements.

There isn’t a lot of information on the other players in the ensembles; this compilation is really focused on Terauchi and his playing, but opening track “Roshouman” gives a beautiful taste of how expansive the band was, with flute and percussion lending a weight to what slowly morphs into a twisted surf attack, with keyboards sometimes doubling, sometimes backing up Terauchi’s searing leads. And they do sear – if you take anything away from this collection it should be his monstrous ability.

It’s hard for my brain to really pick apart the different tunes and give any impression as to what strikes me about them. Some of that is just the nature of the music – surf rock has very particular tenants and I can say Terauchi’s groups execute them pretty flawlessly. I do keep coming back to the soundtrack vibes of “Dannoura” as well as the forlorn vibes of closer “Amefuru Machikado”.

But the other part of it is very much my brain: after years of refusing to acknowledge I needed some help in that area I finally broke down and saw a doctor. Now I’m starting medication to see if I can focus and get my anxiety controlled enough sit for longer than 10 minutes without freaking out over something. Yesterday my family sat down to play cards and Eleki Bushi was the album we put on. It was nice, and couple with the family time made me think it would be a good choice to kick the week off. But so far the “take for immediate relief” medication isn’t working so today is more than anything else just a blunt force effort to get my mind together enough to complete a task.

My apologies to Taskeshi Terauchi, whose music deserves better words than the ones written above.