Quinn Christopherson releases his long awaited debut album, Write Your Name In Pink via Play It Again Sam. It’s a groundbreaking record and a masterclass in songwriting and storytelling alike. Quinn writes with the precision of Joni Mitchell or the Mountain Goats, his exacting details giving the songs a depth and believability that’s relatable, though your own circumstances will no doubt be different.

Quinn first emerged in the spotlight in 2019, when he won NPR’s coveted Tiny Desk Contest with “Erase Me,” the glorious culmination of Write Your Name in Pink. It is a song about his transition, sure, but it is also a frank examination of the complications of identities, of the privilege that can simply come through new pronouns. For Quinn, though, they are somewhat arbitrary, anyway; now that he’s seen as “he,” he is more comfortable with his femininity, into the dawning feeling that men can write their names in pink, too. These 11 new songs bear out a deeper premise of “Erase Me”—that is, we’re never done becoming who we are going to be, even when the world wants to reduce us into who it thinks we already are, like a trans Native songwriter from Alaska.