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Ben Wendel (saxophone)

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With BaRcoDe, Ben Wendel has created a fine, sometimes daunting, but always highly original piece of work. If you suspect that the four-vibesplus-sax combination might be a bit of a gimmick,...

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Ben Wendel (saxophone)

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Vinyl Record

$31.25

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With BaRcoDe, Ben Wendel has created a fine, sometimes daunting, but always highly original piece of work. If you suspect that the four-vibesplus-sax combination might be a bit of a gimmick,...

About

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, Ben 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. The album embodies Wendel’s restless drive to explore sound as architecture – elastic, collaborative, and boldly futuristic.

Contents and tracklist

1. Clouds

2. Mimo

3. Olha Maria

4. Repeat After Me

5. Birds Ascend

6. Lonely One

Spotlight on this release

  • Ben Wendel - BaRcoDe

    13th Mar 2026by Dan Spirrett

    Visionary saxophonist and composer Ben Wendel unveils BaRcoDe, a new electroacoustic project for saxophone and four mallet players. Developed through residencies at The Jazz Gallery, the album interlaces intricate composition, chamber textures and electronics into a cohesive and immersive sound world.

Awards and reviews

April 2026

With BaRcoDe, Ben Wendel has created a fine, sometimes daunting, but always highly original piece of work. If you suspect that the four-vibesplus-sax combination might be a bit of a gimmick, just listen and discover how there is much to enjoy here.

A very refreshing album, then, making great use of the talents of all involved, and an object lesson in thoughtful use of decidedly non-routine resources to create music that is distinctive and often has great beauty.
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