Features
Dimitri From Paris told us his 10 favourite house and disco tracks
Dimitri From Paris searches for the perfect recipe
“I cook every day at home. I started cooking when I lived by myself because obviously my mum wasn’t cooking for me! I like the idea of putting stuff together. Cooking, everyone says, is the same as mixing records. You have a limited amount of ingredients and you have to play around with them and make something exciting out of them. And when I get to something I like, I enjoy making it over and over and over again, until I’ve got it. I’ve learned lots of tricks. I watched cookery shows to get tricks from chefs. Once I’ve perfected my recipe of something, I tend to be not excited by it any more and I move on to something else.
“At some point I was interested in the stuff I was eating at restaurants: I had a sauce with my steak, and I was thinking ‘how come I can only get this at the restaurant?’ so I started finding out how they make it. It was a French sauce based on a reduction of veal bones. Around four years ago, my bookings started to slow down and I decided to properly pursue it, and when the butcher said ‘no way’, I literally had to find a guy who would sell me the bones. I had to find the recipe online and it took me two or three days to make, because you have to dissolve those bones. Me and my wife, we bought the biggest pot – so big I have to wash it in the bath tub!
“I also like Japanese curry, which is based on the French recipe and a process called the roux: curry powder, flour and oil mixed to make a paste, and you mix that with stock and it makes the sauce. They mix it so it’s a big gravy, very thick. Ninety-nine per cent of Japanese people buy the gravy in stock cubes. But I didn’t want that. Again, I was searching online and found an American blog, a guy who was crazy on curry. Add stuff, leave it. Add stuff, leave it. To cook this dish takes six days!
“So this is the geeky stuff I’m into; it’s like digging for clothes, or digging for records. It’s exciting and most of the excitement comes from the process, finding the recipe or finding the ingredients. This is the excitement. I find it very therapeutic. It’s like people who go in the garage every weekend to work on their car or a crazy project. I have less time now than in the days of EDM, since my bookings went up – to the despair of my wife, who asks me ‘when are we going to do this again?’
“I’m not bothered about fancy food. Everybody is trying to do something deconstructed, but give me some good old-fashioned French food from the sixties; comfort food done really well, the way people did it fifty or sixty years ago. No-one can do it! I don’t know what will come next – I usually cook what cannot be done elsewhere. A lot of what is offered as healthy food lacks the taste. What matters to me is the taste. When you cook yourself, it’s just healthier. Health goes with the pleasure of a good meal; health is about feeling good in general. I don’t know if I’m healthy but I am more healthy than someone who doesn’t cook their own food. And I’m happy.”
1 Horse Meat Disco ‘Let’s Go Dancing’
Glitterbox Recordings
“HMD, with help from Luke Solomon, bring back the rubbery post-disco grooves of New York’s Paradise Garage – with a London twist.”
2 Gizelle Smith ‘Dust’ (Dimitri From Paris vs Cotonete Discomix)
Jalapeno
“Soul singer Gizelle gets disco-fied, with a band of ace Parisian musicians. This isn’t your ordinary laptop mix, baby.”
3 Keni Burke ‘Let Somebody Love You’ (Dimitri From Paris Super Disco Blend)
Le-Edits
“Long-time fave and Philly disco underdog gets the remix treatment it always deserved on my vinyl-only label.”
4 The Face vs Mark Brown ‘Needin U’ (Dimitri From Paris remix)
CR2
“This classic David Morales stormer gets reverse-engineered back to its original disco form (with a cameo from Loleatta Holloway).”
5 Crystal Waters, Sted-E & Hybrid Heights ‘I Am House’ (Masters At Work mix)
Dopewax
“While all the kids try to copy their beats, Masters At Work show them who’s their daddy”
6 Sister Sledge ‘Got To Love Somebody’ (Dimitri From Paris remix)
Glitterbox Recordings
“Sister Sledge and Chic: it’s a match made in heaven”
7 The Joi-Fuhl feat ShezAr ‘Don’t You Worry’ (B’s Spen & Reelsoul Believe dub)
Soulfuric
“Old-school garage house”
8 Chic ‘My Forbidden Lover’ (Dimitri From Paris remix)
Glitterbox Recordings
“One of my dreams came true when I was finally allowed to remix this evergreen song”
9 Jamie 326 ‘Testify’ (Terrence Parker mix)
Local Talk
“Chicago-meets-Detroit, via Stockholm”
10 Jimmy ‘ Bo’ Horne ‘Spank’ (Dimitri From Paris Classic re-edit)
TK
“Many copied it, but no one beat the original. Here it comes in a dancefloor-effective edit.”
'Dimitri From Paris Presents Le Chic Remix' is out on Glitterbox Recordings in June
