Victorialand
Encyclopedia
- This is about the music album. For the Antarctica region, see Victoria LandVictoria LandVictoria Land is a region of Antarctica bounded on the east by the Ross Ice Shelf and the Ross Sea and on the west by Oates Land and Wilkes Land. It was discovered by Captain James Clark Ross in January 1841 and named after the UK's Queen Victoria...
Victorialand (1986) is the fourth album by Scottish band Cocteau Twins
Cocteau Twins
Cocteau Twins were a Scottish alternative rock band active from 1979 to 1997, known for innovative instrumentation and atmospheric, non-lyrical vocals...
. Working without member Simon Raymonde
Simon Raymonde
Simon Philip Raymonde is an English musician and record producer. He is the son of the late arranger and composer, Ivor Raymonde.-Career:...
, who had been enlisted to work on This Mortal Coil
This Mortal Coil
This Mortal Coil was a gothic dream pop supergroup led by Ivo Watts-Russell, founder of the British record label 4AD. Although Watts-Russell and John Fryer were technically the only two official members, the band's recorded output featured a large rotating cast of supporting artists, many of whom...
's Filigree & Shadow
Filigree & Shadow
Filigree & Shadow is an album released in 1986 by Ivo Watts-Russell's supergroup, This Mortal Coil. The supergroup consists primarily of artists attached to the 4AD label, of which Ivo was the co-founder and the owner and president...
album, vocalist Elizabeth Fraser
Elizabeth Fraser
Elizabeth Davidson Fraser is a Scottish singer best known as the vocalist for the pioneer alternative rock group Cocteau Twins...
and guitarist/producer Robin Guthrie
Robin Guthrie
Robin Guthrie is a musician best known as co-founder of the Cocteau Twins. During his career Guthrie has played guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums and other musical instruments, in addition to programming, sampling and sound processing...
produced a record almost completely devoid of percussion, drenching acoustic guitar
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
s in reverberant
Reverberation
Reverberation is the persistence of sound in a particular space after the original sound is removed. A reverberation, or reverb, is created when a sound is produced in an enclosed space causing a large number of echoes to build up and then slowly decay as the sound is absorbed by the walls and air...
space to create a wide, expansive sound that borders on ambient
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
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The title refers to the part of Antarctica known as Victoria Land
Victoria Land
Victoria Land is a region of Antarctica bounded on the east by the Ross Ice Shelf and the Ross Sea and on the west by Oates Land and Wilkes Land. It was discovered by Captain James Clark Ross in January 1841 and named after the UK's Queen Victoria...
after Queen Victoria (and forming the British claim to the continent, currently dormant under international treaty). Several song titles seem to have polar themes (although not exclusively Antarctic), including "How to Bring a Blush to the Snow", "Feet-Like Fins", presumably about penguins, "Throughout the Dark Months of April and May", which could be about the beginning of the South Polar winter, the obvious "Whales Tails" and "Oomingmak" which is an Inuit
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
name for the muskox. "The Thinner the Air" could refer to the fact that much of the continent is more than 3 kilometers (2 mi) above sea level; at this altitude air becomes noticeably thinner. As is often the case with Fraser's vocals, the lyrics are indecipherable.
On its initial release in the UK the vinyl edition was a 12" disc which played at 45 rpm, which would be normal for EP rather than a full album which would normally play at 33⅓ rpm. This was due to difficulties in the mastering process in reproducing the minimal soundscapes. Some test pressings at 33⅓ rpm are known to exist.
An uncredited instrumental version of "Oomingmak" was used as a backing track for the credits at the end of the 4AD compilation video "Lonely Is An Eyesore". This instrumental version was later made available in the 1991 4AD singles box set
The Box Set (Cocteau Twins)
The Box Set is a 1991 collection of EPs by the Scottish band Cocteau Twins. It collects their non-album releases up until that time. It also contains a bonus disc including songs from throughout their history which have not been otherwise released....
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Track listing
- "Lazy Calm" – 6:34
- "Fluffy Tufts" – 3:06
- "Throughout the Dark Months of April and May" – 3:05
- "Whales Tails" – 3:20
- "Oomingmak" – 2:42
- "Little Spacey" – 3:26
- "Feet-Like Fins" – 3:26
- "How to Bring a Blush to the Snow" – 3:51
- "The Thinner the Air" – 3:15
All songs composed by Elizabeth Fraser
Elizabeth Fraser
Elizabeth Davidson Fraser is a Scottish singer best known as the vocalist for the pioneer alternative rock group Cocteau Twins...
and Robin Guthrie
Robin Guthrie
Robin Guthrie is a musician best known as co-founder of the Cocteau Twins. During his career Guthrie has played guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums and other musical instruments, in addition to programming, sampling and sound processing...
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Credits
- Elizabeth FraserElizabeth FraserElizabeth Davidson Fraser is a Scottish singer best known as the vocalist for the pioneer alternative rock group Cocteau Twins...
– vocals - Robin GuthrieRobin GuthrieRobin Guthrie is a musician best known as co-founder of the Cocteau Twins. During his career Guthrie has played guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums and other musical instruments, in addition to programming, sampling and sound processing...
– guitar - Richard ThomasRichard Thomas (musician)Richard Thomas is British a musician, writer, and comedy actor. He is best known for composing and scoring the award-winning Jerry Springer: The Opera with Stewart Lee. Thomas collected the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical Score in 2004....
of Dif JuzDif JuzDif Juz was a British instrumental band, strongly influenced by dub, who were active in the early to mid 1980s. Retroactively they can be seen to be most strongly allied with the Post-rock movement.- History :...
– saxophone and tablas