You have to be in the mood for Christian Lee Hutson's hushed, thoughtful and tender music, but when you are, it hits the spot. The singer-songwriter's second album is a study of his home state of California—not the surf and sunshine and toothpaste-commercial girls, but the quieter living-room and backyard moments, of being fucked up by your parents and smacked by the reality of getting older, but finding a way to get through and make it work. "I need headphones to fall asleep/ I close my eyes and I pretend to be/ In my little room ... Stepdad reading Treasure Island to me," he sings on "Strawberry Lemonade," its James Taylor guitar turning slippery and impossible to hold as a ghostly chorus hollers in the background. "I'm peeking through the bandages to see if I can handle it" goes "Endangered Birds," the weeping strings tailor made for a Paul Thomas Anderson movie. Quitters is produced by Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers and you can hear both their influences on Hutson, in that deceptively delicate songwriting style, melancholy interspersed with moments of simple beauty. "Rubberneckers," in particular, is reminiscent of Bridgers' more musically upbeat work, its snare and guitar sounding like they're underwater as Hutson delivers a blow of self-deprecation by comparing himself to "a doctor's office magazine." There are also shades of Paul Simon's self-titled solo debut on songs like "Age Difference," an idiosyncratic little love song ("I am your biggest cheerleader/ Your smallest violinist") sighing with mournful, lonesome horns. On a few songs, including "Sitting Up With a Sick Friend," you can hear and feel the intimacy of fingers sliding up and down guitar strings; it's almost chill-inducing. "Teddy's Song" is carried by a slow, heavy thump of the drum that's nearly funereal, but also includes the cozy-sad line "I sleep with the radio next to the bed on the floor/ because it sounds like my parents talking through the door. "OCDemon" is surprisingly perky. Punctuated by radio chatter and kissed with warm bass, "State Bird" suggests, "When life gives you a lemon, cut a hole in it, smoke some resin" (then repeats the line "I don't think that this is working" until it's practically a numbing agent). And "Blank Check" feels like a sign of hope, gorgeous, high-flying guitar cresting as Hutson reassures, "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do." It's a quiet manifesto, but still. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz