How one of the most exciting Balkan bands ever to visit Scotland came to be fronted by an accordionist and a violinist from Albuquerque, New Mexico, would take too long to go into here. Suffice to say that Jeremy Barnes is the kind of chap who likes to carry a vision through to fruition.

How one of the most exciting Balkan bands ever to visit Scotland came to be fronted by an accordionist and a violinist from Albuquerque, New Mexico, would take too long to go into here. Suffice to say that Jeremy Barnes is the kind of chap who likes to carry a vision through to fruition.

Barnes and his partner, violinist Heather Trost, are A Hawk and a Hacksaw.

For this tour, organised by the Arts Council of England's admirable Contemporary Music Network, however, they have become a sextet, the additional musicians bringing cimbalom, trumpet, double bass, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, Hungarian bagpipes and extra violins and accordion.

The results constituted a spectacle, even in a barely lit Arches, from the initial procession through the audience. Balazs Unger's feature on cimbalom, a hammer dulcimer which he attacks with massive energy, precision and musicality, would have been worth turning up for in itself. The ensemble pieces, however, were a tribute to Barnes's determination, often beginning in solemn mood then exploding into momentous charges of colour and virtuosity.

At one point, the jazz-style attack of trumpet and alto saxophone gave the impression of Charlie Haden's Liberation Orchestra gatecrashing a Balkan wedding. At another, a three-violin melody careened and careered through an intricate dance metre with dizzying panache. Barnes's songs and singing, sounding like a refugee from the Incredible String Band, didn't quite match the instrumental flair on display and while his foot percussion did the job, the mind truly boggled at what the whole caboodle might have sounded like with the advertised but absent Alex Nielsen lending his percussive acumen.