From the mind of multi-instrumentalist and mad musical scientist Jeff McLeod comes this compelling slab of … what, exactly? McLeod describes Stranded Islands -- released under the oxymoron name of Cesspool Dreams -- as “drone-driven, analog synth-laden, guitar-sprawled Southern gothic spoken word musicks.”
Each of these eight songs, with such clever and curious titles as “In the Parking Lot with a Vape Pen Listening to Doom Metal” and “Putrescence and Pulchritude,” feature eight spoken-word performances representing different people from the Southeastern United States and their stories. So, for example, the bubbling synths of opening track “Lydia” belie the harrowing lyrics about domestic abuse as recited -- nay, inhabited -- by Paula Marrotte. And on “The Vape,” a woman muses about how she dropped her vape in an office toilet, rescued it and ultimately drowned the vape -- “hissing and screaming from the water it had taken in” -- at a fountain across the street. This tale is set against an incessant drone. Some songs are long and wordy and heartbreaking (“When I Lose Things”) while others are barely more than blips (“Run Off” and “Ran Out”).
All of this evolves over the span of about 31 minutes.
Stranded Islands is intense and disturbing, revealing and haunting, dystopian and dreamy. But in a single word, Stranded Islands also is genius.
Track Listing
1. Lydia
2. Buckets
3. Run Off
4. In the Parking Lot with a Vape Pen Listening to Doom Metal
5. The Vape
6. When I Lose Things
7. Ran Out
8. Putrescence and Pulchritude
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