Mayor of "Lovetown"

You might know Dimitri from Paris as an emissary for exotica and lounge from the ’90s. His 1997 album Sacrebleu, a hybrid of house and vintage Continental styles, was a surprise hit that Americans embraced alongside Ultralounge comps and Esquivel reissues. When swingin’ kitsch faded away post-Y2K, Dimitri’s mix discs could have gone quietly into the cut-out bin. But right now, you’d be hard pressed to name a DJ who’s brought back a sound to mainstream clubbers the way Dimitri has with disco. As he tells it by phone from his Paris home, disco was always his first love, and exotica more of a detour in his long career. Born in Turkey to Greek parents, Dimitri spun disco and house on European radio before the rebirth of lounge, and he’s so confident of his disco knowledge that he’s coined a term for a subgenre—“cocktail disco”—and dubbed his new double-disc on the bbe label thusly. We rang him to find out more about the genre in advance of Dimitri’s Friday 8 set at Zentra.

What’s “cocktail disco”?
I’ve been collecting disco records for a while, and there was this kind of style which started to make sense to me that sounded like it was disco, but out of a Broadway musical. It has that tropical thing and it was kind of lounge-y. After a few years I finally had a nice collection of 20-plus records, and that’s how I came up with [the name]. I call it a sub-sub-sub subgenre; I don’t think there was such a term in the late ’70s. I liked the idea that I could go into a secondhand record store, browse around and find records that tons of people have passed over, and those would be the records I would be excited about.

What are some popular examples of cocktail disco?
I think the closest thing that sounds like what’s in my Cocktail Disco comp [out this month] is Kid Creole and the Coconuts. August Darnell almost invented the genre with Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band. Then there’s the Salsoul Orchestra which was, like, 30—sometimes 60—musicians playing. The richness gave it a much more Hollywood glitzy sound.So you are drawing from the underground version of disco.Yeah, and what I like about “underground” is that usually that means that though the artists had a smaller label and a smaller budget, the disco producers were trying to create something very lush, so it makes for a special sound as well.

What’s the story with the Ritchie Family, who are on the Cocktail Disco comp?
I thought it was three sisters, like Sister Sledge. I never really liked their productions apart from one album, Brazil. I was like, “This album really sounds like [Philly disco session band] MFSB.” It turns out the Ritchie Family is made up of a producer named Ritchie Rome and the MFSB people, who are also the Salsoul Orchestra. It was like Motown with that famous rhythm section, but it was the Philly rhythm section-—which was the same five guys playing on zillions of records. They were there laying down tracks every single day of the week.That disco rhythm guitar playing has faded from dance music.Well, I’m always trying to bring up disco as much as I can because it was sort of the climax of dance music. There hasn’t been anything better since, and I try to get that through to the younger clubbers and the Defected crowd. They always think of disco as some tacky thing with the afro wig. I think there’s so much good music in there and I’m trying to combine that—mesh that—with more contemporary beats and productions so that people can get into it.

Do you think it’s working?
I think so. On my The Night at the Playboy Mansion mix, I used “Down to Lovetown” by the Originals—a classic that faded away—and now the whole room knows it. I was talking to Francois K and he said, “You actually made that record big. And it was never that big and it’s 30 years later.”

Dimitri from Paris spins at Zentra Friday 8.