We report the first observation of high-spin states in nuclei in the vicinity of the island of inversion, populated via the 18O+18O fusion reaction at an incident beam energy of 34 MeV. The fusion reaction mechanism circumvents the limitations of non
-equilibrated reactions used to populate these nuclei. Detailed spin-parity measurements in these difficult to populate nuclei have been possible from the observed coincidence anisotropy and the linear polarization measurements. The spectroscopy of 33,34P and 33S is presented in detail along with the results of calculations within the shell model framework.
