The Duende Years
Maria Woodford
The Duende Years is a time capsule, a reckoning, and a homecoming.
This collection gathers songs written and recorded during a formative era of Maria's life—years shaped by relentless creativity, emotional intensity, and Read more
The Duende Years is a time capsule, a reckoning, and a homecoming.
This collection gathers songs written and recorded during a formative era of Maria's life—years shaped by relentless creativity, emotional intensity, and a devotion to truth-telling through music. Much of this work was created during my former project Duende: Maria Woodford & Alex Radus, a collaboration rooted in instinct, urgency, and deep musical trust.
The recordings in this release span studio demos, unreleased raw and alternative versions, and live performances of previously recorded songs—captured in moments where polish mattered less than presence. These are not revisions meant to improve the work; they are parallel truths. Different nights. Different rooms. Different emotional weather.
Influenced by folk, blues, early antifolk, and the underground singer-songwriter movement of the 1990s, these recordings capture a voice in motion—sometimes rough, sometimes luminous, always honest. The songs live in the space between beauty and discomfort, intimacy and defiance, humor and ache. You can hear the air in the room, the breath before a line, the risk of the moment.
For a long time, this body of work lived quietly in the background—unfinished business, unfinished grief, unfinished joy. Releasing The Duende Years now is an act of integration: honoring who I was, reclaiming what was never lost, and offering these songs exactly as they are—alive, flawed, and still breathing.
This record is for anyone who has ever made something because they had to, for anyone who disappeared for a while and came back louder, for anyone who believes music can cradle a life.