French DJ Dimitri Mixes the Beats of Many Cultures

If, as in the novel and film “High Fidelity,” people can be judged by the sum of their aesthetic choices, then DJs are an open book. You can tell a lot about turntable masters from the vinyl they choose. Take Dimitri From Paris.

Part of the new breed of DJs who have emerged from France, Dimitri is a cosmopolitan globe-trotter who plucks sounds and beats from across cultures like a funky anthropologist. His latest album, “A Night at the Playboy Mansion,” is a fizzy magnum of pink champagne, bubbling over with Third World exotica, lounge music and old-school grooves.

At Vynyl on Friday, Dimitri distilled the colorful sound schemes of his album to a hard, pure essence, keeping the energy high with a minimum of frills.

Like Fatboy Slim, Dimitri is an unapologetic populist who isn’t afraid to tap into his listeners’ love of vintage urban music. Using the resolute thump of house music as his primary pulse, Dimitri folded in swatches of classic disco and frisky Caribbean drum explosions, jazzy fragments and crowd noise--a tight lattice of party sounds. He kept the track manipulation to a minimum, occasionally working the reverb knob on his mixing board to wind up the crowd--but mostly relying on his own impeccable taste.