Hung Massive, “Once Again”, 2011
Hung Massive is a duo of musicians playing the hang. The two members of the group are Danny Cudd and Markus ‘Offbeat’ Johansson. They have been playing together since 2010 and have played in more than twenty countries since the creation of their ensemble. The duo regularly invites other artists to participate in the recording of their tracks or to make remixes of existing tracks. The artists with whom Hang Massive plays more or less regularly are Victoria Grebezs, The Many Rivers Ensemble, Bleecker (aka Adam Winchester) and Digital Samsara.
The hang is constructed from two half-shells of deep drawn, nitrided steel sheet glued together at the rim leaving the inside hollow and creating a distinct ‘UFO shape’. The top (“Ding”) side has a center ‘note’ hammered into it and seven or eight ‘tone fields’ hammered around the center. The bottom (“Gu”) is a plain surface that has a rolled hole in the center with a tuned note that can be created when the rim is struck.
The Hang uses some of the same basic physical principles as a steel pan, but modified in such a way as to act as a Helmholtz resonator. The creation of the Hang was the result of many years of research on the steelpan and other instruments. The inventors of the hang, Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer of Bern Switzerland, have continued to refine the shape and materials and have produced several variations over the years. The name of their company is PANArt Hangbau AG.