Track Listing

1. Lazy Calm
2. Fluffy Tufts
3. Throughout The Dark Months Of April And May
4. Whales Tails
5. Oomingmak
6. Little Spacey
7. Feet Like Fins
8. How To Bring A Blush To The Snow
9. The Thinner The Air

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17860 in Music
• Released on: 2003-02-10
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

CD Description
In the two years following TREASURE, the Cocteau Twins released three EPs: AIKEA-GUINEA, TINY DYNAMINE, and ECHOES IN ASHALLOW BAY. Each of these records saw the band moving progressively further away from the heavier sound of previous releases. VICTORIALAND (1986) was the apex of this trend and easily their most ethereal, airy album. Interested listeners should also check out the band's 1986 THE MOON AND THE MELODIES, recorded with ambient musician Harold Budd.
VICTORIALAND features very little in the way of percussion on most tracks, instead concentrating on the interplay between Elizabeth Fraser's vocals and Robin Guthrie's elaborate, but unassuming, guitar effects. This is most successful on "Oomingmak", where the ambient sounds backing the two smoothly ebb andflow, augmented by Simon Raymonde's intermittent bass notes. Other standouts include "Feet-like Fins", which whirls around Guthrie's gorgeously echoing guitar before adding bass and bongos in a swirling climax, and "The Thinner the Air", ahaunting track that suggests a more archaic Dead Can Dance.VICTORIALAND and its predecessor, TREASURE, are consistently cited as the band's best records by their fans.

Customer Reviews

cocteaux' crowning glory- nobody does it better
I cannot rate this album higher, nobody has done a soundscape that compares... For me there has never been a singer that tops Liz Fraser for pure out-of-this-worldiness when it comes to alien-speak. The voice of an angel? Do me a favour and don't seek any words, there aren't any, but that's the beauty... No message. Listening to Oomingmak, I am reminded of driving across Ireland to my homeland of Co Mayo, it makes me picture a Mintsrel's Gallery in a huge vaulted cathedral.. Hearing The Thiner The Air and I wonder if there was ever an operatic singer to better Miss Fraser, for someone who claims to have never had any formal training, it's an inspiration to us all. Everyone should hear this album, it is glorious in every sense of the word. This album has stayed with me since it's release, and will forever and ever amen. I want to buy a copy for everyone I know, just so they can experience what I have known.. How's that for a recommendation?

The Cocteau,s jettison the incandescent glories of old for more serene territory.The results are the same....bliss unconfined.
Speaking as someone who would have crawled across broken glass using my tongue as a propeller just to hear a new Cocteau Twins album I was a bit disappointed when I first heard Victorialand. It lacks the epic peaks and troughs of their previous album, the magnificent Treasure and indeed the three E.P,s released between Treasure and this album Aikea-Guinea, Tiny Dynamine / Echoes in a Shallow Bay. With bassist Simon Raymonde off recording on This Mortal Coil's Filigree & Shadow and the faithful old drum machine sat in the corner gathering dust Victorialand is a lighter airier album than previous efforts. It lacks the incandescent glories of their best work but once you get used to the fact that you are listening to a calmer( lazy calmer?) and more reflective work than the giddy extraterrestrial pop of old you realise this is an extraordinarily beautiful album .
The lack of percussion and the sculptural booming bass lines means there is far more space and tracts of spatial calm Richard Thomas of Dif Juz fills in some of this with his woozy saxophone and Tablas but mostly it's the glistening guitar refrains of Robin Guthrie and of course the extraordinary voice of Elizabeth Fraser that give Victorialand it's exceptional ambience.
First track "Lazy Calm " glides the emollient saxophone over exquisitely plucked guitar notes and the serene vocals that twitter for the chorus of sorts. "Fluffy Tufts" may be a song title so twee it would make a children's TV presenter blanch but it is a truly gorgeous track with the multi-tracked vocals pirouetting over cascading notes that briefly recall the effulgent rhapsodies of Treasure. Even a more austere track like "Whales Tails " is truly dazzling, though in more precise structured manner..at least till Fraser's vocals gambol away briefly ."Oomingmak" brazenly highlights Fraser's amazing vocal range to wondrous effect and even if "Little Spacey " is a little too waltz like the faultless exhortations of "Feet Like Fins" and the shimmering fateful tones of "The Thinner The Air " means the album is book-ended by a musical virtuosity so very rare for it's stop you in your tracks beauty.
The album title refers to the part of Antarctica known as Victoria Land ,named after Queen Victoria (and forming the British claim to the continent, currently dormant under international treaty). Several song titles seem to have polar themes which gives it added interest for me, an avid student of polar exploration.."How to Bring a Blush to the Snow" is pretty obvious. "Feet-Like Fins", is in all probability about penguins. "Throughout the Dark Months of April and May", could be about the beginning of the South Polar winter, the obvious "Whales Tails" about errr the tails of whales and "Oomingmak" is an Inuit name for the Musk Ox. "The Thinner the Air" could allude to the fact that much of the continent is more than 3 kilometres above sea level and at this altitude air becomes noticeably thinner.
An intoxicating drift into ambient territory Victorialand was followed by The Harold Budd collaboration The Moon And The Melodies. Which further confirmed this coast towards the outer extremes of mood music .I love ambient music ,despite my cursory initial reservations I was always going to love this album. Rather than ravel the listener in an exhilarating miasma of thrumming pop/rock textures Victorialand lowers them into a idyllic ocean of lapping eddies. With the Cocteau's the results are invariably the same.. ..bliss unconfined.

Perfect little gem...
Victorialand is very much a product of CTs etherial phase. Gentle guitar figures, few if any drums, and Frazer's angelic tones. Maybe not the obvious choice to introduce yourself to the band (you would be better off with "Heaven or Las Vegas", "Blue Bell Knoll" or even "Treasure" for that matter).
Here we find them at their dreamiest it is the perfect companion to the twinned EPs "Tiny Dynamine" and "Echoes in a Shallow Bay". This is from that period when the group was reduced to a duo of Frazer and Guthrie. It has a sparser sound than we are used to, and maybe takes a few more plays to really 'get'.
Victorialand is not, really, a full scale album. It is a mini album weighing in at just under 33 minutes. The original vynil version played at 45rpm. But those 33 minutes contain some of the best music for daydreaming ever written. The purity of sound makes it ideal for CD...
Buy it and prepare to lose yourself in reverie....