Courting as it does the coiffure and razzle of the catwalk and the fabulous glamour of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy emporium, there simply couldn’t have been a more fitting title. But ‘Cruising Attitude’ does far more than tip winks and doff references to cruising speeds and to the lavish fancies of a shag-pile business class (even if the unashamedly kitsch album cover suggests otherwise). It’s cool and it’s slick yes, but the record’s smooth and easy tempos extend well beyond the remits of artifice and parody. What could have been a rather irritating demonstration of style and wit is instead an affectionate and sympathetic reading of all those outrageously camp lounge and disco musical signatures we’ve grown to love and loathe in equal measures from cutesy old TV shows like ‘Hart To Hart’ and The Love Boat’: pizzicato strings, smokey horn sections, tinkling cocktail pianos, syncopated bass riffs, woodblocks plus those drooling strokes of the harp.
Not that any of this should come as a surprise. Dimitri From Paris is not some nerdy half-hope crafting his devilishly smooth brew of sparm from his one-bedroomed flat in Burnley. Dimitri is about as authentic as you get. The Turkish born – of Greek parentage – Frenchman has worked as a musical director for chic couture shows such as Chanel, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Yves Saint-Laurent, as well as mixing several compilations including ‘A Night at the Playboy Mansion’ (which sold 350,000 copies worldwide and went gold in Australia) and ‘After the Playboy Mansion’ for Hugh Hefner’s fluffily nefarious empire. Aside remixing Bjork, Brand New Heavies and Quincy Jones, Dimitri released his first album called ‘Sacrebleau’ in 1997, which revealed a subtle mix of styles from over the years: jazzy samba, soft house and even snippets from movie soundtracks.
This time Dimitri concocts his heady cocktail of 70’s smarm from a bevy of beautiful guests: the six-feet and counting French sex siren, model and all round trouser entertainer, Helena Noguerra (‘La Vie’, ‘Toi Mon Auto’) Japans’s Kisen Horino (‘Okinawa Love’), silky voiced purveyor of jazzanova and downtempo latin grooves, Victor Davies (This Is Your Life’), the beautiful and sophisticated, Pink Martini who last year wowed so on the Cannes party circuit (‘Syracuse’), anti-disco activist Daniel Wang (‘Venusienne Dance’) as well as a gentle, swoonworthy contribution from the Pizzicato Five’s Maki Nomiya (‘Merumo’).
Dimitri is an avid collector of disco records, early rap 12“, vintage drum machines, Nike trainers, pork pie hats and Japanese toy robots from the 70s. He’s been to Japan some 25 times in the past 10 years, and speaks the lingo. Wonder where all this is going? Buy the album. All will be revealed. It’s got more cheese than a pack of Bleu d’Auvergne – but it’s quality all the same. All that’s really missing is some totally gratuitous semi-naked lady smoking a cigar on the front. And even this can be served on request..