Victorialand is the fourth studio album by Scottish alternative rock band Cocteau Twins, released by 4AD in 1986. Working without bassist Simon Raymonde, vocalist Elizabeth Fraser and guitarist/producer Robin Guthrie opted for a subtler sound on the album. Victorialand was recorded without bassist Simon Raymonde, who had been enlisted to collaborate on the second This Mortal Coil album Filigree & Shadow (1986). The duo of Guthrie and Fraser opted for a subtler sound which dispensed with most percussion and bass, instead consisting primarily of Guthrie's "delicate guitar filigrees and lush, produced textures." As is often the case with Fraser's vocals, the lyrics are indecipherable. For example, Fraser took a passage from a non-English language book to write the lyrics for “Whales Tails”, not knowing what the words meant. The album title refers to the part of Antarctica known as Victoria Land, after Queen Victoria (and forming the British claim to the continent, currently dormant under international treaty). Some of the track titles were borrowed from passages on the Arctic and Antarctic in David Attenborough's The Living Planet: A Portrait of the Earth, the accompanying book to his 1984 BBC nature documentary series The Living Planet, for example "Throughout the dark months of April and May, the birds display to one another and finally mate" on page 54. On its initial release in the UK, the vinyl edition was a 12" disc which played at 45 rpm, which would be normal for an E