From Paris comes Mr Suave

AS FRANCE’S (unofficial) ambassador of stylish club sounds, the man known as Dimitri From Paris is surely inspiring pride among his countrymen as an A-list DJ, producer and remixer who also happens to be, visually, a snake-hipped pin-up. Due in Bangkok tomorrow, the guy has an undeniable elegance to match his devotion to dance music. 

Dimitri’s DJing career started in the late ’80s in the Paris pirate-radio scene. Shifting over to an official national station, he was the first DJ to play house music |for the edification of his |compatriots, on a pioneering show that ran for more than |10 years, until 1998. It turned him into a cult figure among connoisseurs of the genre, as he humbly admits during a short chat with us ahead of his return to Thailand. 

 

WHAT’S BEEN KEEPING YOU BUSY LATELY?

I’m finishing a couple of remixes and edits that I’ll be taking along on my one-month tour of the US and Asia.

IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE YOUR LAST STUDIO ALBUM. IS ANOTHER ONE COMING OUT ANYTIME SOON?

There are things in the pipeline, yes. I’m still fine-tuning a few things. All I can say for now is that it will be the follow-up to one of my earlier collaborative projects.

 

WHAT SONGS OR SAMPLES ARE YOU CURRENTLY IN LOVE WITH?

I like the new track by Eddie Fowlkes, “That’s What I Think About”, which is unusually deep and housey for me, but it has a great funky vibe.

 

HOW DO YOU FIND MATERIAL TO MIX INTO YOUR SETS? 

I’ve kept my whole vinyl collection since the ’80s, so I have more than 10,000 records to pull stuff from. Then I always browse in shops like ND [www.Discogs.com] for things I don’t know about. For new stuff, outside of what my network of like-minded people sends me, I mostly go to Amazon for CDs and Juno for everything else.

 

HOW DO YOU TRAVEL AROUND WITH ALL THAT MUSIC?

I have my entire DJ library on my laptop’s hard drive and I also carry around an external one-terabyte drive with thousands of CD rips in case I have an idea for an edit on the road

 

WHAT’S THE LATEST DJ TECHNOLOGY YOU’RE USING?

I’m happy using Traktor, as opposed to the USB drives most people use. It allows me to have a much bigger variety of music I can use because I can browse through it so quickly. 

 

YOU ALWAYS APPEAR IMPECCABLY CHIC. WHO’S YOUR STYLIST?

Thank you! I am my own stylist – I would absolutely hate anyone telling me what to wear!

 

HOW DO YOU VIEW THE CLUB SCENE TODAY?

The majority of people tend to be less patient and want to hear only what they already know, whatever that is – fast and easy. But, after decades of DJing the old-school way, I’m still touring, so that means it’s still possible to present things in a different and a little more sophisticated way. 

 

DESCRIBE YOUR IDEAL PARTY.

My ideal party is when I can get the people on the dance floor cheering to the music I like. But, like all of the seemingly simple things in life, it’s not that easy to achieve!

 

SO WHAT’S THE PLAN FOR THE PARTY TOMORROW?

What I do is always rooted in black music – funk, disco and all their derivatives, right up to the present. This is the raw material from which I custom-build every set on the fly, taking live cues from the space I’m playing in and the people there. I’m more into bespoke than |off-the-shelf.

 

Catch Dimitri From Paris at the Vault Speakeasy Club on Sukhumvit Soi 11 tomorrow. 

Admission with one |drink costs Bt1,000. 

Get more information at (082) 308 3246.