Looking for an easing in to the work week (can you tell we’re a little overwhelmed of late?) and thought we’d share this track from Chicago- + Minneapolis-based band, ON AN ON.

The band formed from the ashes of the five-piece Scattered Trees as two brothers—Baron Harper + Jason Harper—quit the band just before they were all set to enter the studio to record a full-length. Hitting a now-or-never moment, the remaining members—frontman Nate Eiesland, his now wife Alissa Ricci, and Ryne Estwing. Sure, jerk move by the brothers, seemingly, but one of them is named Baron, so…shoulda’ seen it coming, guys.

And regardless of their merits as a larger band, the resulting album the trio put out under their new moniker is pretty great, start to finish. Today’s track, the gently rolling, catchy, Broken Social Scene-esque “American Dream”, is a standout from the band’s debut, but not by much—album opener “Ghosts” gives a trustworthy glimpse at the solid songwriting at the essence of the band’s songs and some great production throughout. And the upbeat “Panic” comes in a strong second among my personal favorites, ramping up the rhythmic pace of the record near its close while still retaining the music’s melodic hooks.

Give “American Dream” a listen as you start in on the week.

We just heard tell of the band ourselves but their debut, Give In, came out well over a year ago. So let’s show them some late-in-the-game love—order the vinyl for Give In or get the digital version via iTunes.

You can give the whole thing a listen through the soundcloud page of the band’s label.

Driving through Hollywood early this morning, I heard this NPR piece on Earth Wind + Fire‘s 1978 hit, “September”, and it reminded me of how flawlessly amazing that song remains to this day, 36 years later.

It’s also one of the happiest, danceable songs ever. So I employe you, as we step into the second half of “September”‘s namesake, easing out of the work week and into week’s end, get dancing, my friend. You’ll feel all the better for it.

And be sure to make the 21st night of September one to remember.

Posting just a couple photos of last week’s retreat up to Big Sur + Carmel up the California coast.

You can see a ton more via our Instagram feeds—ravenandcrow + katiefrichtel. Also, expect a lot of photos of our cat + dog—Allister + Owen, respectively—and food we’re about to eat.

Click the panorama below of the view from the precipice on Ewoldsen Trail at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park to see a larger version. Note the single bird trailing multiple times across the same shot.

A quick shout-out today to laser craft company JCR Workshop.

I know little to nothing about the company other than they create pretty rad laser-cut artwork. On their Facebook page, JCR describes them-/him- self as “one man and one laser working together in the name of human/machine harmony. BIRDS, BATS, WHALES AND SHARKS.” Which, yeah, about covers it.

Our friend Kristen gave us this laser cut wooden card of a grackle recently. For anyone not already familiar, grackles are passerine birds common to North + South America that, though they’re members of icterid family, do resemble in form + nature corvids (crows, ravens, et cetera). Plus, we’re kinda fans of most things avian.

JCR also does laser cut bird, bat, whale, and shark mobiles, like the ones here, our grackle friend, the elf owl (cool), and blue whale. Check them out when you get a chance—they make great gifts.

Caw!

Last fall, when we left New York and came out to Los Angeles for our ‘trial run’ to see how the shoe fit, we were excited to see that we hadn’t yet missed LA’s rendition of Fashion Week, a longtime personal favorite time of ours in NYC. But we were a bit crestfallen when we actually looked into the events and public reception of Fashion Week LA. What’s become a boisterous, massive, citywide street-walking affair in New York, with everyone from tiny boutiques to mainstream retailers participating seemed, in Los Angeles, to be spotty at best, kind of sadly, haughtily copycat-ish at worst. As we’ve found in other instances though, it was more a case of us attempting to draw nonexistent parallels between New York + Los Angeles, two cities that each shine all the brighter for their differences rather than in spite of them.

But, that said, this experience did lead to us discovering some Los Angeles-based talent in the fashion field, most notably, womenswear brand Wren and the company’s founder + creative director, Melissa Coker. With its casual, whimsically elegant attitude, her label’s quickly become one of our favorites (you can see Katie sporting her Kimono Dress here + in our recent write-up on our outdoor studio setup).

We took some time to chat with Coker about the inspiration behind Wren, the secret of asking, and her award-winning, insanely viral campaign video, “First Kiss” (below), in which filmmaker Tatia Pilieva capture the oft awkwardly beautiful moments of 20 strangers kissing for the first time. Cutest fashion campaign promo ever. Watch + read on.

raven + crow: So, first off, how + when did Wren get its start?

Melissa Coker: Wren was founded in 2007 in Los Angeles.

Succinct and too the point. I like it. You were in the fashion magazine world previously though, right? Did Wren’s creation coincide with that massive shift the publishing industry experienced in the mid- to late-2000s at all? Or were you just ready to leave that line of work?

I got an unexpected call from a head hunter inquiring if I would be interested in becoming a trend forecaster. It was a fortuitous, unexpected, and totally wonderful shift to the apparel side of the fashion business.

Is it as dramatically cut-throat as The Devil Wears Prada would have us believe?

I think it depends on what title you were at, but at Vogue there usually was someone crying in the bathroom!

Damn! Have you always had an interest in fashion and design then?

Even as a kid I was interested in fashion and interior design magazines—I used to make collages of the things I found that were inspiring to me.

Proto-vision boards! And the company name—where does that come from? Fellow bird-lover? Or is it more a link between the movement of flight and elegant forms in the designs?

It is based on a character from a Charles Dicken’s novel—Jenny Wren. I believe Paul McCartney also wrote a song about this character.

So the internet tells me. It also tells me Jenny Wren was a dolls’ dressmaker and a lover of “flowers, bird song, numbers of blessed, white-clad children”. Pretty cool namesake.

Now, I know you’ve done a lot of collaborations over the years. What do you like about bringing your work together with other designers and existing brands?

I love exploring other categories that are outside of our wheelhouse—whether that be shoes or bags or jewelry or what have you. It’s also an interesting way to test what our customers think about us offering something to them that we haven’t before. Our latest collaboration is a little different—we teamed up with Langley Fox to create a graphic tee to benefit No Kill Los Angeles animal shelters (right). They have received a great response and are available in our store now. 

Yeah, totally love those. Kitty Stardust for president.

So, this is something that took some effort to grasp when we came out form New York, but how would you describe Los Angeles fashion?

I think it is certainly more casual overall. More effortless at best and more tragic at worst.

Hah. Well put. How does the fashion scene differ from NYC’s, in your view?

NYC’s is more pervasive—New York is almost like a two industry town with fashion and finance. Whereas LA is really all about film, and fashion as a scene is so much more focused and more interconnected.

I was going to ask ‘Do you ever miss New York’, but I think everyone’s who’s spent any time there misses it eventually, regardless of how they feel about the city as a whole now. So, what do you miss about New York then?

I miss the feel of a city—Los Angeles doesn’t feel like one most of the time.

Totally get that. In good ways and bad. What would you say inspires your designs, in general or with some specific examples?

I’m mostly inspired by friends and girls I see on the street. Wren collaborates with many of the girls I find most inspiring from Langley to Alexa Chung to Tennessee Thomas to Tavi and the like.

You keep good company.

We’ve talked to a lot of independent designers who were really hurt by the economic downturn and resulting shift in the economic landscape for them, from Wendy Mullin of Built by Wendy to the gals at Curator up in SF to all our friends who used to have shops or lines in New York but had to call it quits for one reason or another. How did you get your business on the other side of that?

Wren was founded right in the midst of the recession. It was a weird blessing in a way. From day one we had to be lean and efficient.

And how did you grow it from a one-person show…to a company that teams up with the likes of Target?

I think the best advice I ever got was the simplest—just ask. You’ll be surprised how often people say yes. That’s really been a cornerstone of the success of our outside projects and growth,

We saw you just won the Grand Clio for your Fall 2014 campaign film, “First Kiss” (above), and you hit something like 70 million hits in two weeks with it on YouTube. Congratulations—that is truly kinda insane! Really really cute video too and…kinda just hard to turn away from. Where did the concept come from for that?

We’ve always made videos that aim to be cool and content-driven rather than feel like a commercial without artistic merit that is a hard sell—buy-me-now type thing. “First Kiss” was a bit different in that we wanted to make something that was shareable that was driven by connection and emotional and engaging content.

Well fucking well-done. Looking through your other films, we saw another you did with Joanna Newsome. We absolutely love her music. How did you line that up?

I met her through a friend and asked if she wanted to work together on a project together—happily, she said yes.

Again with the just ask. And obviously not into the run-of-the-mill, models standing around and walking catwalks in your designs campaign films. What are the origins of this more cinematic, creative take on showing off your designs.

I just don’t get why there are hundreds of people doing the same thing at the same time. We are all competing for the very limited attention of a very limited group of people, whether they are our consumers or members of the media, etc. When you are small and don’t have well-padded marketing budgets, I think one does themselves a disservice if they don’t aim to do things outside of the box, in a new and interesting sort of way.

Totally agree. Not to trend negative, but Los Angeles has often been classified as an artless place void of any significant culture, especially in years past. What’s made you start Wren here and have it remain LA-based?

LA has a wonderful production center in downtown Los Angeles. It’s alive and well and thriving and I have always felt so grateful to work with the amazingly talented sewers and craftsmen that I have had the good fortune to meet.

What’s you favorite thing about Los Angeles then?

The diversity, professionally, of the people that I am happy to call my friends. It seems that all my friends in NY are either involved in art or fashion.

Right—those boring professions. More importantly though—best tacos in LA?

Yucca!

Whoa—I don’t know how much I’d find as a vegan at a place described on Google Maps as a “tiny taco stand known for Mexican meats” but I admire both your outta left-field-ness and your gusto. Thanks for taking the time to talk with us!

Check out Wren’s online shop + sign up for Melissa’s newsletters to keep up with sales and other events.

We completed these projects a while back but are just now making time to share them.

As we’ve mentioned on these pages in the past, we’ve worked with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for a while now—since 2007, actually—helping them brand their office’s publications, Web products, and overall public impression as they work to organize communication between the many on-the-ground actions of various UN offices and outside aid organizations.

A longtime project—the office’s print annual report—collects data + information on the office’s many coordinated support efforts to address chronic issues around the world as well all too common national + regional emergencies. These reports are then shared with OCHA’s public audience as well as their worldwide supporters, reporting exactly how their financial aid is being put to use each year.

In recent years, we planned and designed a template to create Web-based annual reports to compliment the print versions, providing both duplicative information for audiences able to more easily digest it online and provide added content that can sometimes be difficult to effectively capture in print (most often, exhaustive financial data and data on regional + country office staffing).

This most recent print publication was large enough to require perfect binding (as opposed to saddle-stitch/staple binding) and brought in a whole new design template we developed hand-in-hand with OCHA. The cover features a full bleed photo that wraps around publication back + front. The Web version continues to employ the template we developed in 2011 for the office, evolving to incorporate both new formats of content and changing aesthetics in Web design.

You can see a few more images of the annual reports below, but take a look in our portfolio to see more about the Web + print publications.

We’re up in Big Sur for the rest of the week/end celebrating our eleven year anniversary. I know. Crazy.

All my love to you, Katie. I still want to grow feeble and old with you; I still want to sit under the stars and watch the constellations change with you, more now than ever before.

For anyone interested, you can see really old photos from our wedding here. And yes, I had pink eye.

PS—robbers + thieves, totally disregard this post. We’re 100% home, just being super-quiet.

PPS—David, our contractor at MooShoes Los Angeles, also disregard this post. We’ll be right over, so that space better be done, man!

You know one music scene that I rarely hear much about? Switzerland. Maybe I missed the boat on the 70s hard rock scene and black metal’s never quite been my thing, so, I’m sure some would disagree, but I personally don’t see a ton happening there musically.

Which is why I took notice when I hard Silver Firs, based in the capital city of Bern in the Swiss Prealps. The band creates layered, wispy music that combines tones of pop, folk, and musica tropical with choral vocals and African rhythms to result in pleasantly airy meeting of musical cultures, all courtesy of song-writer + frontman, Raphael Elmiger (above, second from left).

We got a chance to talk with Raphael about his band, his thoughts on the Swiss music scene, and to get some recommendations for little-heard indie pop in Switzerland. Listen to the band’s new EP and read on.

raven + crow: So, Bern, Switzerland—what’s it like there?

Raphael Elmiger: Bern is a friendly and fairly small city for being Switzerland’s capital. Culturally, it stands somewhat in the shadow of Zurich or Geneva. It has an impressive historic old town, surrounded by the river Aare. In the summer the river is probably Bern’s main attraction—the water is clean and you can swim literally through the city. It’s a good place to live if you can handle the slightly provincial groove. I like it here.

Sounds nice. And, to be fair, a lot of people have the same gripes about DC. Is there much of a local music scene in Bern? I feel like we’re relatively insulated from most popular Swiss music in the States.

There isn’t much of a local music scene in Bern for what we do. Sometimes I also get the impression that the city is a bit slow embracing new music. We actually played at one of the countries biggest festivals and in most of the bigger Swiss cities before we were properly booked for a show in Bern. But our country is small, so you’re not focused on a certain city when you’re a musician. There’s a Swiss music scene of like-minded people where you know each other.

I think there’s some really good music around but for some reason Swiss bands have a hard time getting attention abroad. It doesn’t help that the commercially successful local music is mostly from the Swiss German pop or cheesy (soft) rock camp.

Yeah, I feel like what little I’ve heard tends to fall pretty soundly into the categories of crazy metal or pretty tame folk. Definitely don’t hear the former, but there’s obviously some folk, singer-songwriter influence in Silver Firs’ sound. Then I get some of the tropical rhythms and instrumentation, reminding me of Tanlines or St. Lucia a little bit, which is surprising. Is that style something that you’re just a fan of?

I don’t know exactly how we came to sound like we do. We don’t feel the need to relate to the musical heritage of our country, so we were quite open with our influences from the beginning. I like folk, psychedelic and (no) wave stuff but I also enjoy listening to West African music. For example the stuff Soundway Records reissues is great. While we are inspired by these rhythms and instrumentation, we are not fully capable of playing them the same way. But we like loosing ourselves in rhythmic patterns with instruments we don’t fully master. Despite the global influences, this approach probably contributes to our own musical identity along with the fact that most of us grew up somewhere in the hinterland and that we produce everything ourselves.

Makes sense. Speaking of the band members, can you break down who’s in the band for us?

In the studio, I perform and produce most things myself, with the occasional help of the others in the band. They have all their own projects going as well.

Live Belia sings and plays synths, Olivier is on bass guitar, Christoph plays guitar, Dave hits stuff with a stick and plays guitar, Moritz is on drums and I sing and play guitar. We all play various percussion instruments.

How and when did you all start out?

I started Silver Firs three years ago when my former band split up. I began writing and recording the first album without a clear masterplan. At the same time I gathered musicians I am friends with from other bands around. I think I got a pretty sporty team together.

Totally sporty. Your music’s pretty layered though—do you use any pre-recorded material for shows or is everyone doing their thing live?

We play it all live, there’s just one song where we use a backing track. Sometimes it’s not so easy to recreate all the rhythmic patterns of our recordings but we prefer to keep the live shows a bit unpredictable.

Well-done—it kinda bums me out when bands play live with a bunch of pre-recorded material. It’s like, dude, I can go home and listen to that and just look at a picture of you all.

So, your full-length, self-titled debut, came out in 2012 stateside, then you followed up last year with EP#1 last year and now we’ve got EP#2. Do you all have any immediate plans for another full-length or are you concentrating on playing out right now?

We are already working on EP#3 and hope to be much faster with that one. Our plan is then to release all 3 EPs together on vinyl. Other than that, we’re trying to figure out what the next steps should be. We are not very organized in terms of booking shows and all these things, it was pretty much all DIY so far.

I say keep the music DIY; hire someone to handle all the annoying booking stuff. No, but I wanted to say, I love that shot on the EP#2 cover. Your trailer parks are much more scenic than ours.

Yes, we love it too. The picture was taken by our friend Christian Neuenschwander. The whole series he did about that trailer park is great. It combines typical alpine scenery with something that doesn’t seem to fit it. There’s this bleak aesthetic in his pictures.

Yeah, it kinda reminded me of that show, Top of the Lake. So where does the band name come from?

As a trained biologist, I have a soft spot for unappreciated critters and plants. The silver fir is a very common tree in the Swiss Prealps, where most of us grew up. It’s not a mystical or very popular tree like an oak—it just stands its ground out there. On the other side the English name sounds quite euphonic (at least to us). I liked this combination.

I just like the fact that you all do have mystical trees in Switzerland. I usually ask this of a lot of the overseas bands we like, but what’s the reason for singing largely in English rather than your native tongue?

That’s a legitimate question. I would actually like to try out singing in German but you reach more people when you sing in English. We grew up listening to a lot of music with English lyrics, so that’s as natural to us as German or French lyrics. Of course there’s a language barrier when we write in English, but in my songs the lyrics should rather support the imagery the instruments create, so I tend to keep things cryptic and short.

No, your English is better than mine, I think, but, yeah, that’s pretty much what I expected. Sonja from German band BOY had essentially the same response. So, tell me, as someone who’s never been myself—what do you love about Switzerland?

I think we have really good bread and I like that you can reach even the smallest village with public transportation. Also: our multilingualism, the mountain valleys of the Ticino (Italian speaking part) and the Graubünden, Gruyère cheese and our farmers’ fruit spirits. There are also quite a few things not to like, especially some of the recent political tendencies but that’s another story.

Yeah, I’ll take great bread over scary politics any day. Are there any other little-known Swiss bands or bands you’ve played out with that you’d recommend?

I would check out Dans la Tente, Labrador City, Disco Doom or Evje. For something with Swiss German lyrics I recommend the band Doomenfels.

Awesome—I’ve never heard of any of them. Thanks for taking the time to talk and definitely let us know if end up stateside any time soon.

You can listen to + download all of Silver Firs’ material via their bandcamp page or through iTunes if you’ve got a gift certificate burning a hole in your pocket.

Earlier this year, when we traveled back to New York for a little bit of work and a little bit of play, we were met by a couple lovely gifts from our host, Erica. Among them, a cute little box of chocolate covered caramels from a previous unknown to us confectioner—New Paltz, New York’s Lagusta’s Luscious.

In addition to being fully vegan, Lagusta’s Luscious takes things the extra mile, pulling in social justice themes in a playful way and sourcing many of their ingredients locally. From their Web site:

“We work closely with small farmers and producers in our beloved town of New Paltz, New York and across the country to source everything from our Maui vanilla beans (from a tiny two-acre vanilla farm) to the candy-striped beets (our beet-coriander truffle will win you over, we promise!) grown by Farmer Jessica less than a mile away.”

Their Bluestocking Bonbon line also celebrates feminist luminaries with Raspberries de Pizan, Pauline Benjamin Peanut Butter Cups (named after the owner’s mother), and Furious Vulvas, shaped—yes—like a vulva.

“But how do these chocolates—vulva-shaped or not—taste,” you ask! I respond with “Fucking awesome, dude. Why else would I be writing about them?”

The quality of the dark chocolate and creamy richness of the caramels that we had ranked among the best we’ve ever tasted. And the complimentary tastes Lagusta’s chose to set those flavors off—in our case, rosemary sea salt, apple + candied pecan, and thyme preserved lemon—were distinctively awesome, giving each caramel a personality of its own. A personality we wanted to devour.

Lagusta’s operates as a small brick-and-mortor upstate, offering chocolates, fresh pastries, doughnuts from The Darling Kitchen, and coffee and the like. They also ship their sweets across the country, including barks (like the Strawberries and Cream Bark), bars (like the Four Grain Bourbon Caramel Chile Bar), caramels + toffee (like the Heathen Toffee), and a lot more, including chocolate of the month clubs. Plus their packaging (as you can see below) is über-cute.

So get ordering and support both your own personal endorphin production and an animal-friendly, people-friendly, everything-friendly small business.

PS—Erica, we’ll be back in December.

I pass these plants across the street from us many times every day and have meant to photograph them for a while now. I love how the impressions of outer spiked leaves from the plant growing out from a tightly wound center remain on the surfaces as the leaves begin to unfold.

Were I a more sappy, emotive type, I’d say something about our early experiences pressing into our psyches and influencing our lives from that point on until our deaths. But I’m not, right?

It certainly looks cool though.