The Puddle is a New Zealand rock band originally formed in Dunedin in 1983 by George D. Henderson. They had a mini-album, a live album, a studio album and a single released on New Zealand independent record label Flying Nun Records between 1986 and 1993. The group has continued to exist since then, with several line-up changes and periods of inactivity. Since 2006 the group has released four albums on Dunedin independent record label Fishrider Records.

With their 1986 – 93 Flying Nun Records catalogue long unavailable, The Puddle re-emerged in 2006 from more than a decade of sporadic live performances and occasional "lost album" recordings. Rumours that founder and core member
George D. Henderson had “done a Syd Barrett” proved to be unfounded. A decade of ill-health was conquered by a rigorously scientific approach to clean-living coupled with happenstance. Albums released on Fishrider Records since 2007 include No Love - No Hate, The Shakespeare Monkey (2009), Playboys in the Bush (2010), and Secret Holiday/ Victory Blues (2012).

The Puddle have always been the most stubbornly underground of the bands associated with the Flying Nun imprint, despite George’s lifelong desire to write “pop music”. A favourite of some critics who could see beyond the fragile limitations of their early recordings (their debut mini-album was included in SPIN magazine’s list of the best Kiwi pop releases alongside The Clean).

The current line-up of the band includes long-time collaborator Alan Starrett (who has played and recorded with The Bats, David Kilgour, and Robert Scott and was also in the short-lived Flying nun psych-pop tribute supergroup The pop Art Toasters), eccentric Dunedin poet and musician Gavin Shaw, and George’s brother, and original Puddle drummer, Ian Henderson.

“beautifully resigned guitar pop… full of the kind of articulate and well-read pop songs that made Henderson’s home country the epicentre of literate guitar music in the 1980s and ‘90s”
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