Album review: Sultans of Ping, Casual Sex in the Cineplex vinyl reissue
The Sultans of Ping - Casual Sex in the Cineplex.
★★★★★
Sultans of Ping fans will need to be quick off the mark to get hold of the vinyl reissue of the band’s brilliantly anarchic 1993 debut.
Limited to just 1,500 copies, this new translucent yellow pressing has already sold out in advance at many record stores – proof of how thumpingly well Casual Sex In The Cineplex has weathered the decades.
It is, in a multitude of ways, a near-perfect album. Witty, weird, combustible and electrified by a sense of humour that marks it out as one of the great expressions of Cork identity.
You don’t have to be from their home town to “get” the Sultans. A November comeback show at Islington Assembly Hall, London, sold out in a few days. And they’re on course to pack Vicar Street, Dublin next March.
But the LP nonetheless catalysed a specific place and time: Cork in the early 1990s. A blur of pints in the permanent midnight that was the original Liberty bar on North Main Street, lost weekends in the coal pit of Sir Henry’s (some of us are still trying to purge the smell of dry ice from our nostrils) and Sunday afternoons watching Dave Barry from the old Shed at Turner’s Cross.
Casual Sex is, nominally, in the genre of cartoon punk. The Sultans were conscious about honouring the legacy of glam pranksters such as New York Dolls. But they were also part of a wider moment of surrealist Cork groups. It was a tradition that had stretched back to the Five Go Down to the Sea in the 1990s. And which also manifested in the more outre work of the late Cathal Coughlan.
But while there are many silly, shouty moments, Casual Sex has moments of tenderness and teary-eyedness, too. After the pogo-ing onslaught of Back in a Tracksuit and Indeed You Are, singer Niall O’Flaherty and guitarist Pat O’Connell – the songwriting engine of the quartet – go pop on the harmonica-fuelled 'Veronica'. They then veer into straight-up maudlin on the fantastic '2 Pints of Rasa' – a ballad set against the backdrop of the Cork rave scene of the time.
The album, which comes with the original sleeve insert and lyrics, culminates in Where’s Me Jumper?'. To this day, it is a vital reminder to other Irish artists that music can be innovative and escapist. That it doesn’t have to suffocate under the weight of its own piousness and self-importance.
It’s a fun song about losing your brand-new sweater. But also, with its surreal lyrics, it is a punk-pop Monty Python and one of the greatest Irish singles ever. Three decades on, it remains unique – and is the perfect full stop at the end of this wonderful reissue.
