Listening to Tunng’s third album Good Arrows — where they transform from a promising folktronica band to a bonafide pop outfit — you would never expect their live show to be a visceral experience.

And for the most part, it wasn’t. By the time a rousing and rabid audience called them back for a well-deserved encore, it was easy to forget that most of the audience walked into the Horseshoe well prepared for a subdued Sunday night show observing six somber hippies quietly enacting their 21st century Wicker Man pageant. Yet from the moment they took to the stage, the smiling troubadours of Tunng were quick to replace any mystique with full-on geek, courtesy of their jovial stage banter, which dwelled on their fascination with Toronto’s many charms — especially our black and albino squirrels (“Wot, do you play chess with them, then?”).

With their gorgeous four-part British folk harmonies and three acoustic guitars, Tunng may well have been playing Hugh’s Room for Fairport Convention enthusiasts. It’s their electronic touches — loops, drum machines and live manipulations — that likely got them signed to Thrill Jockey in the US (home to Mouse on Mars, Trans Am and all things Tortoise) and a crossover to a slightly cooler, non-boomer crowd.

Though the modern embellishments provide lovely Four Tet textures on CD, in a live setting they proved to be minor distractions, especially when clarinetist Martin Smith’s seashell percussion was just as effective at providing creepy crackles as Phil Winter’s laptop machinations (though he should lay off the goddamn windchimes). There were times when the electronics seemed downright gimmicky: during the somber murder ballad “Jenny Again,” Winter injected an incongruous sample of a man exclaiming “Jenny!” For a split second, it actually seemed like they might break into De La Soul’s “Jenifa Taught Me.”

Though the not-so-freaky folk is their core strength, the beats do transform Tunng’s material on the dancefloor. By set’s end, the cross-armed chinstrokers in the crowd were clapping along and dancing to the current single “Bricks” — a song that fulfills the pop potential of the long-lost Beta Band much better than that group’s current spin-off The Aliens manage to do.

But it’s not because they can pull off a pop song that places Tunng in a position to be much more than a footnote to the fading folktronica fetish: it’s because that’s only one of their many strengths.