Dimitri From Paris wants to make one thing clear about his new mix-CD, A Night at the Playboy Mansion: "I know it looks like a perfectly thought-out marketing scam, but it's not.

"Probably nobody's going to believe us, but it's true," Dimitri (born Dimitri Yerasimos) said. "At least I know this is something real, not the marketing thing I really hate."

A Night at the Playboy Mansion, due Tuesday on Astralwerks, is in fact a bona fide Dimitri From Paris release — it just happens to come with a seal of approval from Playboy founder Hugh Hefner.

The record dates back to a year ago, when Playboy asked to sponsor Dimitri's DJ appearance at the Paris night club Respect's party at the Winter Music Conference in Miami Beach. The camp eagerly accepted the offer.

"Playboy was surprised that we were so excited about it, so we started talking about what we could do in the future," Dimitri said. "We talked about doing something at [New York club] Twilo, and then they said, 'You should come play at the Playboy Mansion.' We were like, 'What?' We didn't know that it was anything else than Hef's home. We didn't know they booked DJs there."

'It Had My Name All Over It'

But Playboy still sought a reason to throw the party, which led to Respect's offer to title the upcoming third volume of their Respect Is Burning compilation series A Night at the Playboy Mansion.

"It had my name all over it from the very beginning," Dimitri said. "For me, the Playboy imagery is something I've always been into. I've taken elements of that into my previous work, and it made a lot of sense that I could do something for them."

Dimitri, 37, was born in Istanbul but raised in Paris. His first DJ gig was on France's Radio 7 in the mid-'80s, and he immediately carved out a niche spinning '50s-jazz-influenced house grooves. In 1993 and 1994, Dimitri released two obscure EPs, his first solo recordings, but in 1998 came international success with his full-length debut, Sacrebleu. The album sold more than 50,000 copies in the U.S., aided by a Volvo television ad that used the track "Une Very Stylish Fille."

Since then, Dimitri has remixed such stars as Björk, New Order, James Brown and the smash Stardust single "Music Sounds Better With You." A Night at the Playboy Mansion features lesser-known French funk and house artists such as the Originals, Sunburst Band and Black Masses.

"It's the kind of music I play every day," Dimitri said of the record. "These songs sort of give a feeling of glamour, and there's something sexy within that. The challenge was to make it so you could imagine yourself at the Playboy Mansion listening to the record."

The album opens with Bah Samba's "Reach Inside" (RealAudio excerpt), a disco tune reminiscent of Donna Summer, then moves on to other styles, such as the jazzy, uptempo hip-hop of Stetsasonic's "Talkin' All That Jazz" (RealAudio excerpt) and the funky house of Terry Hunter's "Sweet Music."

"Playboy was really involved in it; it wasn't like, 'We'll license the name to you,' " Dimitri said. "Everyone was 100 percent behind it, including Hef himself, who wanted to hear everything. I found it very enjoyable. At first, it was the big corporate American company Playboy, but then this guy who's 75 years old was interested in what a group of DJs were doing with his image."

'It's Just Such A Mythical Place'

For Playboy, sponsoring an album was also a pleasurable venture. "It's totally a new thing for us," Playboy Marketing Coordinator Alison Raleigh said. "But it worked really well. Dimitri's whole [image] goes perfectly with the Playboy aesthetic — his groovy kind of disco look."

Dimitri said he has always been impressed with Playboy and what it stands for. "It's just such a mythical place, for a lot of reasons," he said. "The main one for me, honestly, is not the sex. It's the whole way it looks: the idea of freedom, but also respect toward women. The idea of being elegant at any cost.

"For me, Playboy is something that is crafted with love," Dimitri continued. "It's a way of life that isn't just crafted with money. It's good music, good wine, good food, good women, good cars, good whatever ... and respect to all these things."

Dimitri From Paris will celebrate the release of the record with his first performance at the Playboy Mansion on April 29. The event also will be a party for Hugh Hefner's 75th birthday.

"There's not a single friend of mine who's not asking, 'Can I have a ticket?' " Dimitri said. "Even friends from home are like, 'I'm getting a flight.' "