BaRcoDe Ben Wendel

• 1 Clouds 06:51
• 2 Mimo 06:35
• 3 Olha Maria 10:29
• 4 Repeat After Me 04:38
• 5 Birds Ascend 03:40
• 6 Lonely One 09:25
• Total Runtime 41:38

Info for BaRcoDe

Visionary saxophonist and composer Ben Wendel presents BaRcoDe, a daring new electroacoustic album for saxophone and mallets (vibraphone and percussion). The project features four leading vibraphonists and percussionists - Joel Ross, Simon Moullier, Patricia Brennan, and Juan Diego Villalobos - and captures the energy of their residencies at The Jazz Gallery, recorded at The Bunker Studio in Brooklyn. Across intricate compositions and immersive sound design, BaRcoDe blurs the line between chamber music, modern jazz, and electronic experimentation, expanding Wendel’s creative language into new terrain.

A two-time GRAMMY® nominee and co-founder of Kneebody, Wendel has built a career defined by range and reinvention. BaRcoDe continues that trajectory, uniting four boundary-pushing percussionists each redefining their instruments in distinctive ways – from Ross’s expressive harmonic sensibility to Moullier’s microtonal precision, Brennan’s processed textures, and Villalobos’s folkloric rhythmic intensity. Released March 13th, 2026 on Edition Records, the album embodies Wendel’s restless drive to explore sound as architecture - elastic, collaborative, and boldly futuristic.

"With this album, Wendel does what he does best: produce a truly unique piece of music. BaRcoDe scans like nothing else out there. It also benefits from close listening. Be sure to grab your headphones for this one. If you listen tight before bed, it is bound to give you colorful dreams." (Jim Hynes, postgenre.org)

Ben Wendel, tenor saxophone, EFX
Joel Ross, vibraphone, marimba
Simon Moullier, vibraphone, chromatic balafon, EFX
Patricia Brennan, vibraphone, EFX
Juan Diego Villalobos, vibraphone, mallet station, percussion, EFX

Ben Wendel
Grammy nominated saxophonist Ben Wendel was born in Vancouver, Canada and raised in Los Angeles. Currently living in Brooklyn, NY, he has enjoyed a varied career as a performer, composer and producer. Highlights include tours, performances and/or recordings with artists such as Tigran Hamasyan, Antonio Sanchez, Gerald Clayton, Eric Harland, Taylor Eigsti, Linda May Han Oh, Moonchild, Louis Cole, Daedelus, Snoop Dogg and the artist formerly known as Prince. Ben is a founding member of the Grammy nominated group Kneebody.

As a composer, he has received an ASCAP Jazz Composer Award, the 2008, 2011 and 2017 Chamber Music America “New Works Grant” and was awarded the Victor Lynch-Staunton award by the Canada Council For The Arts. He also co-wrote the score for John Krasinski's adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men."

Ben was honored to work with conductor Kent Nagano in producing a series of concerts for the Festspiel Plus in Munich, Germany. From 2008 to 2015, he produced a multi-genre performance series at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, California. During that time he was appointed the head of their Jazz and Blues initiative, which included producing and expanding performance opportunities for these genres in Los Angeles. As part of this appointment, Ben helped to create an artistic council which included such luminaries as Quincy Jones, Herb Alpert and Luciana Souza. Ben’s producer work includes the Grammy nominated album "Life Forum" for pianist Gerald Clayton on Concord Records.


Ben has recorded for Edition Records, Sunnyside Records, Motéma Music, Concord Records and Brainfeeder, with five solo albums under his belt, Simple Song (2009), Frame (2012), What We Bring (2016) The Seasons (2018), High Heart (2020), a duo project with French-American pianist Dan Tepfer entitled Small Constructions (2013) and multiple Kneebody albums. His critically acclaimed music video project The Seasons, inspired by Tchaikovsky’s works of the same name, was released throughout 2015 and included guests such as Joshua Redman, Jeff Ballard, Mark Turner, Julian Lage, Ambrose Akinmusire and more. It was listed as one of the best releases of 2015 by the NY Times.

Ben is a former Adjunct Professor of Jazz Studies at USC and a current Adjunct at the New School in NYC. Educational outreach has been a constant in his career with over 300 masterclasses at various colleges, universities, high-schools and also previous work with the LA Philharmonic Artist Program.

This album contains no booklet.