Star rating: ****

Expatriates with origins in these islands are often known to exaggerate innate traits to compensate for being thousands of miles from home. What, though, are we to make of New Zealand's Shetlander colony, whose version of Up-Helly-Aa extends to a swimming pool, home-made Viking longboats used for flaming target practice and, er, lawn-mower racing?

Catriona Macdonald took the discrete decision to write a tune about it. It's what fiddlers do. Macdonald doesn't subscribe to the million miles an hour fiddling brigade of current fashion, although she can play with pacy vigour when the mood dictates. Her style more revels in the contours of a melody and while it may not be possible to discern speeding lawn mowers in her Bring Your Own Galley reel, her playing can be highly descriptive.

Coming to the end of a Scottish Arts Council Tune-up tour, Macdonald and her group - David Milligan (piano), Conrad Ivitsky (double bass) and James Mackintosh (drums) - were alive to every move. The fiddler and Milligan have a particularly close musical understanding, opening the second set with a reel taken at a lovely, sedate tempo, the better to express Macdonald's admiration for its source, Shetland fiddling veteran Gibbie Hutchison.

Mischief, fun and ably handled Nordic complexities figured, too, but anyone seeking further evidence of depth behind Macdonald's cheery frivolity would have found plenty in her soulfully melancholic yet somehow uplifting reading of Michael's Mazurka.