There’s an innately youthful feeling on “Tilt-A-Whirl,” the lead single from LA-based band Alyeska’s debut EP Crush — a fresh, untouched quality, like that of newly fallen snow. That’s its only connection to winter, though, as the song is filled with summer imagery bound to cause pangs of nostalgia. A jumpy bassline leads vocalist and guitarist Alaska Reid into a sort of conversation with a boy, telling him to speak now or never if he’s really got a crush. Lightweight guitars and mentions of the county fair and summer sky set the stage for the starry-eyed chorus,”think about me while we’re young.” Reid shared some background on the track:

“Tilt-A-Whirl” is an ode to the small county fair in my town. My friends and I would look forward to going every year, we’d see boys we had crushes on, and scream about the creepy carnies or the way your feet turned black with dirt in your yellow flip flops. We would giggle uncomfortably at the porno posters the carnies hung in their booths and the rotting state of their teeth. And then there were the rides — The Zipper, The Hurricane and my favorite, the Tilt-A-Whirl. The dirt in the midway was pocked with pools of vomit and discarded glow sticks and the carnies would spray you with giant squirt guns, trying to lure you into playing their game.… It was sort of a running joke, that it was your “coming of age” if you got squirted in the chest by the carnies. I just wanted to convey the sparkle and the excitement of when I was young against the neon glow of the county fair as well as the grit and the darkness lurking around the edges.

Listen to “Tilt-A-Whirl” below, and check out last year’s single “EverGlow” if you missed it.

Crush is out 3/3 and was produced by indie rock veteran John Agnello. According to Alyeska’s publicist, it was the last thing recorded at the Magic Shop, the NYC recording studio where David Bowie did Blackstar and Arcade Fire recorded The Suburbs.