Beta Band Has Blissful, Contradictory Focus

There’s a scene in the film “High Fidelity” in which the record store clerk played by John Cusack blasts the Beta Band’s “Dry the Rain,” supremely confident that he will sell some records. To be sure, the Scottish quartet is irresistibly amiable.

Its loping, blissed-out grooves create a dreamy undertow that’s hard to pull away from, but its prankishness has often turned its L.A. appearances into annoying sideshows.

At the Mayan Theatre on Tuesday, the band mercifully maintained focus.

Since the release of its 1998 collection “The Three E.P.’s,” the Beta Band has bounced, often jarringly, from placid acoustic ruminations to squonky psychedelia.

But onstage the band wisely embraces its own contradictions, allowing breathing room for noise and placidity to peacefully coexist.

At the Mayan, the band hammered home tempos suitable for processionals, then layered pretty, folk-flavored melodies that slowly increased in volume and intensity and just kept cresting.

As tape loops with odd vocal patterns played underneath, lead singer Steve Mason invariably switched from his Martin acoustic to an electric guitar in mid-song, transforming the quartet into an avant-jam band.

At other times, Mason would simply revel in the music’s tribal beats by knocking on cowbells, bongos and tom-toms.

That tension between the reflective and the primal made for a teasingly seductive frisson .