Just as all life can be traced back to one defining moment – the Big Bang – there is one event in Malvin Moskalez’s life that completely changed the path of his career. Seventeen years ago, a motorbike ride ended in a dramatic accident in which Moskalez lost a lower leg. In a flash, everything was different. Ever since that day, Moskalez has been trying to come to terms with that painful event. Music has offered a vehicle for this process. Gradually, Moskalez gets a grip on his new life. He rediscovers his love for guitar, singing and songwriting. He spends his time refining his songs, playing them first for friends and family, and later in living rooms and small bars. For a while, Moskalez continues making plans and moving intimate audiences with his performances. Enter Steven De Bruyn. The two get talking and De Bruyn proposes to produce Moskalez’ debut together with Brussels studio wizard Géraldine Cappaert. The result is a beautiful DIY collaboration, a cross-pollination between two musicians who find connection in the same musical experience: deeply emotional songs informed by a no-frills approach: pure and unadulterated, yet warm and personal. Moskalez christens his album ‘For the beauty kept inside’, which could just as well be read as ‘nothing is what it seems’.  

 

 

Malvin Moskalez is the nom de plume of Nico Goethals (Ghent, 1973). Behind this stage name lies a touching, personal story: “My grandmother, Malvina Tweckhuizen, ran a pub in Ghent. It was a people’s pub, whose patrons would come for a chat, a glass of the good stuff and a bit of fun. This high-spirited environment was in stark contrast to the life of my maternal grandmother, Tatiana Moskalez, a Russian-Ukrainian who, following two world wars, ended up in Belgium with a hard life behind her. The duality of pleasure and pain is something I also live with. The name Malvin Moskalez is a tribute to my roots, to two women without whom I would not be here today.”  

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