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Listening to Dimitri from Paris' mix album "A Night at the Playboy Mansion," I was unexpectedly reminded of my friend and his easy transitions from musical rapture to spiritual exultation. I say unexpectedly because Dimitri's first album, "Sacrebleu," was drenched in unctuous irony and lounge kitsch. It was libidinous in a self-aware, leering way -- songs like the fake TV theme song "Dirty Larry" abounded with très suave James Bond melodies, while "Un Very Stylish Fille" played with the spun-sugar sounds of '60s ye-ye music.

Checkout Dimitri from Paris at Virginmega.com Dimitri from Paris "A Night at the Playboy Mansion" Astralwerks

Given the "Playboy" title and the thank you to "The Boss: Hugh Hefner" in the liner notes, one would expect the new record to be equally redolent of martinis and Cohibas. Instead, the disc is full of genuinely joyful funk and gorgeous, enveloping soul. According to the album's back cover, Dimitri meant to conjure a party at Hefner's where "disco rules around the swimming pool with playmates all over the place. Drinking cocktails barefoot, bathing in the Jacuzzi while watching the stars." He failed -- "A Night at the Playboy Mansion" doesn't feel even faintly heterosexual -- but in the process he made a fantastically open-hearted album.

It leaps easily between the late '90s and the late '70s. The hot horns, scatting female vocals and vaguely Latin rhythms of Astrojazz's delirious 1999 track "The Groove EP" melt into Dimitri's edit of the Originals' 1976 disco hit "Down to Love Town," with its deep bass, bongo beats and dramatic strings. That gives way to 1978 orgasmitron "Shangri-La" by La Pregunta, which, with its horny moaning and female voices cooing, "Paradise is very nice," comes closer than anything else on the album to creating a Hefner vibe. Right after, though, comes a juicy, trippy dub-electro remix of Stetsasonic's 1988 "Talking All That Jazz," thrusting us back into a culture dominated far more by prancing girls, flashy queens and buff gay boys than smarmy playboys.

From there, the record heads straight into effusive disco-house heaven. The intensity builds, releases and then builds again, but the groove remains honey-thick. Towards the end, it's easy to be so transported by the gospel-tinged vocals and warm beats on Black Masses' "Wonderful Person," that the inspirational message about your very own wonderfulness seems almost subliminal. Yes, the sentiment is trite. But shipped along on lush, pumping music, it's the kind of notion that can slip past your defenses and set you all aglow without quite realizing it. It's sensual, not lecherous, and it's life-affirming while you listen to it, even if its meaning dissolves the moment the song's over. "A Night at the Playboy Mansion" is as much a soundtrack for rejoicing as seducing -- sexy, sure, but a little bit spiritual too.
salon.com | April 24, 2000

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