With assists from Sam Bush on mandolin and Darol Anger playing  second fiddle, Natalie & Brittany Haas subtly expand their sonic palette while retaining their core sound.

Following 2023’s HAAS, sisters Natalie (cello) and Brittany (fiddle) continue their tone-painting ways on North Node. But this time, Brittany (Punch Brothers, Hawktail, Crooked Still) also did some writing to add Americana flair to the Celtic style Natalie’s favored in her years working with Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser.

Add Bush on “Groundhog Hotel” and “The Great Thwack” and Anger on “The Sisters” and North Node carries its classical elements through dewy bluegrass.

The remaining 10 tracks feature the Haases alone together. Their ideas are so overflowing, multiple themes are often combined into a single cut as the sisters alternate playing counterpoints and in unison on hybrids like “Cedar Pass/Peanut Peak/Prairie Chicken” and “Nature Corridor/Excessive Vegetation.”

They even nod to pop music on the album-closing “Turn Down the Bed,” which lifts the melody of Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” and wordlessly reveals the beauty of the composition.