Tone Glow 232: Amy Sheffer

Amy Sheffer

Photo by Bertran Mark

Even the most deeply-attuned ears of this new digital millennium would be forgiven for never having come across the name and musical world of Amy Sheffer, who until recently existed mostly as a featured-singer footnote in the discography of free-jazzer Marzette Watts. Those who clicked further to find out about Sheffer’s solo discography, a colorful trio of alluringly self-painted William-Blake-looking’80s art-jazz albums— Sanctuary Mine (1980), Where’s Your Home? (1985), Wee’um (1987)—could find the LPs reselling every so often, but usually for rather unmanageably high prices. It seemed once every few years a SoulSeek’er would upload Sheffer’s song “Yellow Wings”—a standout hippie reverie that evokes Archie Shepp’s Blasé (1969) and foreshadows Jarboe -era Swans—to YouTube, only for it to be taken down weeks later. That was about all the crumbs of Sheffer the internet had on easy offer.

Enter Freedom to Spend, who at the end of last year released the wondrously far-out 70-minute Amy Sheffer compilation I Am Shee: Original Recordings, 1979-1987. Matt Werth, who runs the parent label RVNG Intl., had apparently never heard of Sheffer until only a few years ago when, during a visit to the record store sheyeye in Niigata, Japan, he came across a copy of one of her LPs. Thanks to his and others’ work, listeners can now bask in the piano, sax, bass, string, and drum tapestries woven behind and around Amy Sheffer’s unique falsetto psychedelics. Werth also helped to organize a show of Sheffer’s artwork at White Columns last fall to coincide with the release. Max Carpenter talked with Amy about her music, art, and life over vegan food in the East Village this past spring on March 28th.Subscribe nowMax Carpenter: I first discovered your work years ago because of your involvement with Marzette Watts.

Amy Sheffer: Yeah.

And I’m curious because he’s also sort of a—

—very interesting

Very interesting figure, yeah.

He was a very strang…