DIMITRIS DIMOPOULOS is an Athens (Greece) born keyboardist with an impressive, academic track record. Our man, classically trained, has a string of diplomas and degrees including honours degrees in Composition and Performance and Fundamentals. In 2013 he moved to London to follow a musical career and he quickly found work as an arranger, producer, pianist, working across genres.
We first came across him in 2017 when he teamed up with Sulene Fleming (sometime vocalist with the Brand New Heavies) as “Dimitris And Sulene” to craft the well-received album, ‘Sparkle’. Since then Dimitris has been in-demand working as arranger, pianist and keyboardist with people like Steve Gadd, Nathan East, Jeff Lorber, Don Grusin, Shakatak, Incognito, Dexter Wansel, Rockie Robbins, Gwen Dickey (Rose Royce), Dave Lee, Junior Giscombe and bassist George Anderson (Shakatak).
In between all that he released a solo album, ‘Take Me Out Tonight’ and now he’s found a little more time to record this new 10 tracker. It’s Dimitris’ name out there on the cover but like ‘Take Me Out Tonight’ (on which he had help from people like Jeff Lorber and Debby Bracknell), ‘Right Time’ is another collaborative affair. Here DD’s aided an abetted by Greek compatriot and lyricist Elena Fornaro. (pictured with Dimitris below). Indeed she’s as much a star of this show as the main man – her vocals front nine of the ten tracks. The only full instrumental Is the closing track – a gentle ‘Eva’ on which Dimitris shows his mastery of various keyboards.
For the rest of the set, it’s very much a double act with Mr Dimopoulos creating inventive and varied soundscapes over which Ms Fornaro floats her sweet, melodic vocals. The majority of the cuts are perfect for her voice – sweet ballads like the lovely title track and ‘Talk To Me’ and not too frantic rug cutters like the Weekender-flavoured ‘Magic Dancefloor’, This one’s the album’s immediate grabber and little wonder that it’s already winning plenty of plays. Elena sounds just as seductive but a rad feistier on the album’s opener, a crunchy, electro funk affair ‘Toy Boy’. Elsewhere there’s plenty of variety , like the electro fx-laden ‘Karma’ which on which Elena even offers a kind of rap! Interesting!
The variety, it seems, stems from Dimitris’ background. His people define his sound as a blend of soul, RnB, gospel and fusion with many influences from the different genres (notably electro) he has been exposed to throughout his musical career. Like we said, varied and always interesting!
(BB) 4/5
