Kozmic Muffin (1999-2002) [1992-2002]

KOZMIC MUFFIN are a complete rarity in spanish progressive, with only two records, but 'Nautilus' has gained great reputation throughout Europe and is tagged by many as a classical prog piece of the 90s, not only in Spain.

They began their musical history back in 1992 in Galicia (Spain) when guitarist Pedro Granell started to listen to blues, classical music (Satie, Mussorgsky) and 70´s prog like King Crimson, Hawkwind, Manfred Mann, Soft Machine or Pink Floyd. He gave up his relationship with the dark garage band ESKIZOS (after only a couple of EPs) to rehearse and compose music more psych oriented. After some solo work, he got in touch with bassist Javier Vaamonde and drummer Patxi Ortega, both from the band BALOWSKY. After one year of rehearsals, they recorded and edited their first record, 'Nautilus' (1994), a record that became a legend from the very beginning, which sold very well on underground and collector circles throughout Europe. This record was mainly the work of guitarist Pedro Granell, but some problems with the credits of the album and the royalties made him abandon his own band.

For a long time, he has been working as a musical writer and journalist, and he recently edited his first solo record, ('Sils-Maria', 2002). After he left the band, some old songs and rearrengements, along with some new material were used for their last and second album, 'Space Between Grief and Comfort' (1997). Pedro Granell does not appear on this record, and guest singer on the first record, Julio Gonzalez is the vocalist of the songs written by Granell. Because of the new turn the band was taking, acting more as multimedia performers than as a rock band, Julio Gonzalez and Javier Vaamonde left the band in 1999 to form the jammy oriented band TRICERATOPS. Until very recently, the core of KOZMIC MUFFIN was formed mainly by Patxi Valera, Pablo Rega and Enrique Otero, who have been working with lots of collaborators from the avantgarde and multimedia scene in Spain, with two main performances, 'Construccion de un Tinglado Desmontable' (2000) and 'Preterito' (2001), both of them unreleased.

Many of the members are currently performing multimedia and other musical and non musical avantgarde projects, but the lack of other recent works by the band makes us think that they are definitively disbanded and their members are enroled in their solo projects and collaborations.

Victor Rangel