The Shakespeare Monkey (LP)

New Zealand psych-pop pioneers The Puddle, a revolving line-up of musicians assembled around the unstable core of George D. Henderson, have been around in one form or another since 1984. Three albums and a 7" single on Flying Nun between 1986 and 1993 attracted critical appreciation and notoriety in equal measures for "pop as shambling and sweet as you could possibly imagine".

In 1993 The Puddle toughened up and recorded the brainy outsider rock album, "Songs for Emily Valentine", but, apart from a 1995 single on a French label, the SFEV recordings were not released until 2005. Then, in 2007, The Puddle re-emerged with "No Love - No Hate" followed two years later by "The Shakespeare Monkey". When first released as an overlong CD in 2009 it was the band's 6th album in over 25 years and only the 4th studio album to be released. George (guitars, vocals, keyboards) was joined by Gavin Shaw (Sferic Experiment, Children's Television Workshop) on bass and brother Ian Henderson on drums etc. along with future member Al Starrett (viola) to deliver a wildly diverse collection of songs ruminating on eclectic subjects ranging from populist philosopher Colin Wilson ("As it Was"), dead poets ("One Romantic Gesture"), the Greek god Pan ("Seduced by Virgins") film stars ("Milk"), and infinite monkey probability theorem1 ("the Shakespeare Monkey").

The original unedited sprawl of the CD release of "The Shakespeare Monkey" was "an album with the b-sides left on" 2. The re-mastered LP release is a chance to re-imagine the best of the album as it would have been had it been released as an LP at the time. Less is more and all that.