(Self-released, digital) There is a scene in John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces where his misanthropic protagonist, Ignatius J. Reilly, is cornered by a police officer demanding to know if he has a job. "I dust a bit," Reilly tells the cop. "In addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip." That exchange kept coming to mind as I took in the multimedia experience of How I Made My First Million, a new EP and accompanying hardcover book from Glorious Leader, aka Northeast Kingdom singer-songwriter Kyle Woolard. Are the album and book companion pieces? Seemingly. The book includes lyrics and chord charts to the songs, but the story contained within is another matter entirely. Presented as a memoir, the book follows a man named Otis Boyd Yellowfeather McJunkins, an often-married, endlessly chameleonic antihero who engages in a vast mosaic of hustles and grifts. At one point, McJunkins even attempts to profit off a 9/11 hijacker. It's a strange and twisting tale, at times charmingly mundane and, at others, outrageously obtuse. How that relates to a seven-song EP full of highly melodic folk and electro-leaning indie rock is hard to work out. It's not as if the songs on How I Made My First Million are about McJunkins "plucking prosperity from the pincers of paucity," as the book jacket reads. Instead, they are radio-ready, pop-inflected affairs. "I don't wanna wait!!!" boasts an anthemic chorus and Woolard's playful, falsetto vocals. "Can we don't though?" is a slick tune that vacillates between inoffensive coffeehouse fodder and a Madaila-like indie-dance banger. Woolard has songwriting and production chops for days. The multi-instrumentalist split time recording at the Analog Cabin in Glover and E7 Studios in Reykjavik, Iceland, with frequent collaborator Sakaris Emil Joensen. There is fierce intention behind the EP's songs, with every note and sonic blip placed exactly so. It's juxtaposed with tongue-in-cheek lyrics such as "I'll careen like Charlie Chaplin without a teen" and "Think, McFly!" Narration by Tyler Jones bookends the EP, promising to give the listener "three tips that Big Pharma doesn't want you to know about." "Risk" is the most emotionally naked song of the set, a paean to a departed loved one that grapples with the lingering wounds of grief. "I'll never get over the fact…