Arcesia
Reachin'

THE REVIEW

He had managed it.

John had really managed to make himself forgotten.

Yet there was a time when John Arcesi, son of Italian immigrants in America, was famous: both as Johnny D'Arcy, as John Darcy or Don D'Arcy, but he had also recorded for Capitol under his real name.

He had been a child prodigy, then he became a "jacket singer," a crooner, an entertainer. His models were characters like Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra. And he also had a decent success: in the '40s and '50s it seemed like he was going to make it big. Legend had it that his voice had a "certain" effect, that it could send the female audience "into ecstasy."

And, indeed, during a performance at the Thunderbird Hotel in Las Vegas, a woman in the audience went right "into ecstasy"! - anticipating by a few decades a famous scene from "When Harry Met Sally" - and right there, in front of the stage.

Except it was a fake.

The embarrassment was stronger than the scandal. No matter how much Johnny swore he knew nothing about it and that it was the (damn stupid) idea of his manager, nobody believed him.

His career ended there.

He continued, for a while, to produce vocal groups and write songs under other names: Tony Conti or Chick Johnson.

Then, in 1961, he called it quits and went to Europe. Upon his return, he went to live in Palm Springs with his wife and made himself thoroughly forgotten.

Until 1972.

In 1972, our John published (well, published! It was little more than three hundred copies) this "Reachin" under the name Arcesia.

Why? Maybe the fact that his wife had died a few months earlier might help to understand, who knows!

But what should interest us is that this record is amazing! Try to imagine a "Tilt" (by that other great guy Scott Walker) less "abstract" but more psychedelic and distorted.

What transformed Arcesi into Arcesia? The hotel crooner of Las Vegas into a hallucinatory psychedelic rocker, at 54 years old? He hadn’t sung for over twenty years and you can hear it, but the album has an abysmal emotional intensity.

The album - naturally - goes completely unnoticed and John disappears again, this time for good.

He would die there in Palm Springs in '83.

Luckily, One Little Indian had the crazy idea of reissuing "Reachin" in '97.

A record as dark and mysterious as few others.

Could I not offer it to you?