Music

Go to the archives

Hang Massive

By Jesse Kornbluth
Published: Nov 13, 2018
Category: World

I stumbled on Hang Massive, fell under its spell and put it in heavy rotation. And then I licensed the rights for the video preview of my novel.

One song — “Once Again” — is enough to make you love Hang Massive. As a fan has noted, “This music makes me stop outside motion and begin an inward journey to a very still place.” No kidding. Just watch and listen.

So what is this?

Danny Cudd and Markus Johansson — Hang Massive — were street musicians who began playing together in 2010. They financed their own records and built a following. “Once Again” has 34 million views on YouTube.

Their first appeal is the novelty of their sound. They play the Hang drum, an instrument introduced in Switzerland in 2000. Each Hang is handmade. Few exist. The drum is made from “common steel sheet converted into sheet with a higher intrinsic energy. In the method the steel sheet is nitrided until the sheet is completely permeated with iron nitride needles.” And if you understand that…

The Hang produces a sound we’re not familiar with, what the inventors call “sound sculpture.” They ask: “Where does this sound come from? From the inside? From the outside? The listener becomes a sounding instrument.”

That sounds New Age. But that’s dismissive, so let’s describe the second appeal of this music as “spiritual.” I have field-tested Hang Massive early in the morning and late at night, using a variety of mood enhancers, and it hasn’t yet failed to tune me to its wavelength. [To buy the MP3 download of Hang Massive’s “As It Is” from Amazon, click here.]

The inventors of the Hang and its successor, the Gubal, say that the process of playing these instruments produces powerful effects in the musician as well as the listener. Caribbean steel drums are in a different universe. Here, we are told, the instruments give us a “unique chance to reconnect to the ancient essence of music: the connection with the deepest layers of the essence of being.”

A large claim. Yours to verify.

BONUS VIDEO