Kind of a hard request to describe, because I can't really explain it with better adjectives than those, but I basically want some contemporary, non-classical string music. It can be solo, or have other musical accompaniment, as long as cello or violin/fiddle are prominent. The mood can be jaunty and uptempo or very sweet and nostalgic, as long as it's got some emotional relatability to plebs such as myself.

It's hard to think of any examples except for a couple TV themes, so I'll just post those and see where they get me for the time being:

The ending theme to "The Big Snit" animated short (skip to 9:18):

The ending theme to "The Critic" animated series (skip to 0:33):

Not really that similar to your examples, but from the description, String Sisters came to mind.

I only really know this one song by them, but here's one of Dornenreich's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83z0V8JN0rM
Edit: There's also an instrumental version, apparently (I like this better)

Are you familiar with The Dirty Three? Really mournful, almost jammy-feeling stuff with sparse drums, guitar and violin.

Sorry for the late reply... That String Sisters video's quite long, so I haven't had time to give it a proper listen just yet.

The Dornenreich song is somewhat close to the "general area" of what I'm after, so I'll look into that some more. Sounds good.

iamntbatman, I think I've seen that posted here before, but I forgot all about it. I don't know if it's exactly what I'm after since it's a bit "alternative-y" and a bit too aggressive, though it sounds cool and may be worth checking into further.

Thanks to all of you for the suggestions, and sorry again it took me a while to get back to you.

Oh, another band I totally forgot aboot: Rachel's: