Chilly Gonzales takes his hip-hop/tech fusion to the Largo

Chilly Gonzales might be the best ambassador Europe’s had in decades — never mind that he’s Canadian.

“We’re all Europeans now,” the self-professed “entertainer” declared from his home in Paris’ Pigalle district earlier this month. “I feel like I’m part of a European family, and musically speaking, Europe has sort of taken over the hip-hop world and pop world as well [recently]. You keep on hearing more European electronic sounds popping up in North America.”

But Gonzales, born Jason Charles Beck, certainly doesn’t resemble a Europop star. He’s more like a postmodern Billy Joel for rap and electronic music fans. Utilizing his accomplished musicianship as a pianist to lure in unsuspecting listeners with simple melodies, he then attacks frontal lobes with carefully thought-out bursts of ambient noise or clever rhymes, delivered with equal parts irony and reverence for hip-hop artists such as Rakim or poets such as Allen Ginsberg.

It all amounts to a heady mélange Kanye West would love as much as Ben Folds might — though Gonzales, who performs Sunday night at Largo in West Hollywood, would likely cringe at the comparison to Folds. Gonzales artfully dodged a question related to the other witty piano player, instead choosing to wax rhapsodic about hard rock performance artist Andrew W.K.. Last year Gonzales and Andrew W.K. competed in a “piano battle” in New York City.

The Canadian expat in Paris has been building a small yet invested audience for nearly a decade, first in Berlin when he was teaming with risque musical performance artist Peaches and, more recently, in Paris as an eccentric yet popular piano propagandist with many influences, including Eric Satie and Glenn Gould.

As his fans know, Gonzales’ skills with the keys backs up his bluster. “That’s what enables me to rap,” he said of his musicianship. “Otherwise I would just be a clown.” He was classically trained at McGill University.

It’s been a good year for the 37-year-old: His new record, “Ivory Tower,” a soundtrack of sorts to a film of the same name, came out Tuesday in North America, after being a critical success in England. In the United States, Apple recently chose “Never Stop” from the record as the backing song for a new, currently-airing iPad television campaign.

“It was surprising, and a bit like being ushered into the back door of the White House,” he said of the call from Cupertino to use the song in the ad. “I would love to say that it was because there was just such a tsunami of buzz around me that they had to jump on ‘Never Stop,’ but it wasn’t really that.” Rather, he said, they were searching for a musical connection.

His audience is interested in something similar, and find it on fresh tracks such as “I Am Europe,” produced by Berlin beat maker Alex Ridha (a.k.a. Boys Noize).

The collaboration offers something for both fans of Ridha’s twisted-yet-taut techno and Gonzales’ piano stylings. “Smothered Mate” morphs from cheesy 1980s action film music into dissonant noise worthy of French electro giants Justice — all while keeping in theme.

“I was raised on sitcoms,” Gonzales said. . “You can hear television themes running through so much of my music if you look for it.”

Like everything the jovial expatriate says, it’s occasionally hard to know how much of what he offers is part of the act. He counts Andy Kaufman as a hero, and his shows are known as much for comedic surprises as raw musicality.

To that end, this fall he’s busy touring and unveiling his wry film, billed on Gonzales’ website as an “existentialist sports comedy about chess and success.”

Like his approach to the film, Gonzales engagements usually contain a few wild cards.

“It’s a full surreal entertainment extravaganza,” he said, describing it as “a real classic piano talk show,” and adding that he enjoys the inherent surprises of the live setting.

“It feels good to have someone in front of me or else the whole thing is useless. I like to create situations where even I’ll get surprised.”

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