'March Sweet Blunder' is the new single release from Sigmund Faust, a solo project by Marc Vogler from Berlin, Germany. Vogler, primarily a guitarist but with increasingly multi-instrumental tendencies, has been making music for well over a decade through many forms and genres ranging from traditional songwriting to prog-rock, extreme metal, as well as attempting works for classical ensembles and, on occasion, contributing soundtracks to other media. As diverse as his musical background, this particular project, though firmly rooted in the general realm of ”indie-rock”, always presents itself as an eclectic mix of subtle influences, moods and aesthetics, while occasionally pushing the boundaries of traditional song structures and conventions.
By Kamil Bobin
Discovered via Musosoup
What first got you into music?
In high school, in my circle of friends we all just sort of decided to pick up instruments, which naturally led to endless jamming, school-bands of highly questionable quality and a bit of constant friendly competition in terms of just getting better technically.
I pretty much immediately, within the first weeks of clumsily plucking away at my guitar, realized I had finally found something I not only really enjoyed, but also apparently showed some promise in and deemed worth putting serious time and effort into - it's been a significant part of my life ever since.
What do you think your role is in this world?
I don't think of myself as having any specific role as such. Although, I do perhaps, as all people have, rather a vague, mild obligation of sorts to simply do at least something we find meaning in (as circumstance permits), to try not being too much of a jerk, and generally get a little wiser, or at least funnier, as we go along.
Your latest track is 'March Sweet Blunder'. Can you share with us the background of its creation and did any unusual things happen during its creation?
The basis was a very spur of the moment piece, with the main ideas coming together in a just few minutes of fortunate improvising, which were immediately recorded and just as promptly forgotten about for about half a year in favor of working on other things.
Eventually those core themes of a song then went through about five or six quite varied iterations in changing structure and details, whenever I'd rediscover the piece myself, working out how best to present it and write more consciously around the already existing raw musical phrases.
Thematically, in terms of lyrics, I generally don't really delve into any specific meanings as they can be open to anyone's personal interpretation, but one clue towards a portion of the song I can perhaps give is the title alludes to both March the month, in a spring-like, blooming vibrant sense, as well as the more rigid, efficiently determined, almost implicitly militarized verb of marching (and whatever overlap there may or may not be).
What is one message you would give to your fans?
Uhm... „buy my album“? haha I don't have any concrete message, except maybe: „Thanks for listening, hope you got something out of it!“
How do you spend your time?
Nothing too extravagant or eccentric, both my Steam and various streaming service accounts have gotten a lot of traffic these past two years, currently taking my bicycle into the woods a fair bit, some reading, dabbled in painting and recently I have been learning a little bit of coding – just enough to recognize it is really not one of my strengths haha oh and occasionally I get some work done too!
What are you most proud of?
For now I'd say just regularly releasing music through a variety of outlets – I've always been making music, writing and playing, but getting into the habit of just putting stuff out and calling it done, of occasionally actually finishing a piece from the endless pile of work in progress songs and ideas, instead of just starting ten new things has taken me a while to get used to.
If you could go open a show for any artist who would it be?
Well, seeing as I am currently the only band member in this project, for a live setting, in terms of pure efficiency, it would have to be someone like Paul Gilbert and whoever he's playing with right now – super capable and seems nice enough to go along with it if I just handed out basic sheets and told them they had to fill in and jam along for a bit.
What are you doing to ensure you continue to grow and develop as an artist?
I'd say just being open to and trying new things musically, pushing the boundaries of the comfort zone a little. I've been playing a lot of classical guitar recently, which comes with a whole new range of technical challenges and opportunity for interpretation, I also like to write in a pretty broad spectrum of styles, if I feel in a death metal mood, I might just jam out those ideas for a week, or maybe try some ambient electronic soundscapes – doesn't really matter if any of that will lead to anything concrete for a specific project, but there is pretty much always something to be gained from experimenting and practicing.
Do you think that technology is improving lives?
Yeah sure, in a quite general, broad sense it definitely is, which of course doesn't speak much to the reasonable, responsible, or even just non-exploitative use of all new technologies, and where that ratio really lies, but that conversation would likely far exceed the word limit on any interview hah...
What are your plans for the future?
Release more music, see where that goes!