Since ar­riv­ing from his na­tive Man­hat­tan in 2006 to at­tend Car­ne­gie Mel­lon Univer­sity, Nathan Zoob has been a mover and shaker in the Pitts­burgh mu­sic scene.

Now, he’s mov­ing on.

The singer-song­writer-gui­tar­ist — who’s been a mem­ber of Wreck Loose and Back­stab­bing Good People along with the or­ga­nizer of var­i­ous trib­ute and hol­i­day con­certs for both WYEP and WDVE — is pack­ing for a new life in Los An­ge­les, where he will pur­sue a mas­ter’s de­gree in stu­dio gui­tar at Univer­sity of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia.

He leaves be­hind a part­ing gift with a sec­ond solo al­bum, “Cal­i­for­nia Burn­ing,” that strays from the power-pop of Wreck Loose for the airy in­die folk-pop sound, akin to a Nick Drake, Fleet Foxes or Mid­lake, that high­lights his fluid gui­tar work and tender vo­cals.

He started the pro­cess three years ago, set­ting out to make a spare, mel­an­choly record, with Joni Mitch­ell in the back of his mind.

“I had all these songs — some of them

writ­ten, some of them still to come — that came out of a heart­break, and I was still in that mode when I started mak­ing the record. So, the idea was that this was go­ing to be some small, pro­vin­cial ver­sion of ‘Blue.’ ”

After sit­ting down with pro­ducer Jake Han­ner and work­ing through ar­range­ments, he says, “it nat­u­rally be­gan to grow and I’m prob­a­bly a bit of a max­i­mal­ist, so I don’t know that spare is in my wheel­house. So I be­gan add­ing lay­ers and it be­gan to glow more and more.”

Kayla Schure­man and Mor­gan Erina ap­ply their golden voices to “Stand­ing Waters” and “Shep­herd,” re­spec­tively. Bas­sist Ja­son Ra­falak (Buf­falo Rose) and drum­mer Marc Martinka (Cisco Kid) add some rhyth­mic gal­lop to four songs and he also gets con­tri­bu­tions from Wreck Loose pi­a­nist Max Somer­ville, Iron City House­rock­ers har­mon­ica player Marc Reis­man (on a cover of Bob Dy­lan’s “Mama You Been On My Mind”) and sing­ers Addi Twigg, Kiki Brown and Rosanna Spin­dler, among oth­ers.

The al­bum cover came cour­tesy of a visit to the Mas­sa­chu­setts home of art­ist and Pitts­burgh punk/​folk-punk pi­o­neer Karl Mul­len.

Zoob will re­lease “Cal­i­for­nia Burn­ing” with a show Thurs­day at The Fun­house at Mr. Smalls in Millvale — and then he’s go­ing west with the goal of be­ing an LA stu­dio mu­si­cian.

“I’ve never had a for­mal mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion,” he says, “and I’ve wanted that kind of con­ser­va­tory ex­pe­ri­ence my whole life and never thought I would get it. I ap­plied on a whim, and it was a moon­shot. It was the only school that I ap­plied to, and it was the only pro­gram that I re­ally had any in­ter­est in.

“I want to com­pete in LA, and I have it in my head that I need to sit down and re­ally force my­self to whip my­self into shape for two years.”

On leav­ing Pitts­burgh, he says, “I’m re­ally scared and sad and ex­cited. I’m not ex­cited to leave Pitts­burgh, but I’m ex­cited to try some­thing new. As an adult, this is the only place that I’ve ever lived and even though I grew up some­where else, this was the place where I kind of be­came a per­son and there was an eco­sys­tem here that I felt re­ally com­fort­able in and I felt re­ally sup­ported and nur­tured in.”

The show be­gins at 8 p.m. Ad­mis­sion is $5. CDs will be avail­able for sale; mrs­malls.com.

Scott Mer­vis: smer­vis@post-ga­zette.com.