Japan × Argentina Listen to ROTH BART BARON’s New Album“LOST AND FOUND”

Last Updated on 2025-11-12 by a-indie

BELONG Media / A-indie editor-in-chief yabori here. Even when listening to the same music, everyone feels something different.

Moreover, if you grew up in different countries and cultures, those differences become even more interesting.

This special “music cross-review” project that transcends borders has already reached its third installment!

The writers are Yuuki Takita, who is writing a review for the first time in several years, and RAM, who lives far away in Argentina but loves Japanese culture.

Starting with a chance encounter on Discord, the first review covered the American band Racing Mount Pleasant, and the second featured Australian DJ and music producer Ninajirachi.

And now, we’re finally diving deep into the ninth album 『LOST AND FOUND』 by Japan’s ROTH BART BARON from both of their perspectives.

Takita’s style picks up information about the artist, while RAM’s style shapes the inspiration he receives from the music.

Although their approaches differ, both are trying to get at the essence of what the artist themselves wants to express.

Please enjoy the “chemical reaction” created by these two reviews born on opposite sides of the Earth.

ROTH BART BARON『LOST AND FOUND』Cross Review

Reviewers: RAM, Yuuki Takita　Editor: yabori (Tomohiro Yabe)

From Yuuki Takita’s Perspective

This is already the third cross-review with RAM.

While the previous two featured works by artists from English-speaking countries, this time we’re presenting the new album 『LOST AND FOUND』 by Japanese folk-rock band ROTH BART BARON.

Last time with Ninajirachi’s 『I Love My Computer』, I read RAM’s review first, borrowed his perspective to listen to an unfamiliar work until I understood it, and then wrote about the process of connecting it to my own “like” beyond that.

I might not have been able to write something I was this satisfied with on my own. While thanking RAM, I truly think it was great to do this project.

The Ninajirachi review became a breakthrough for me as a writer, however imperfect. This is the real pleasure of cross-reviewing.

Usually when I write reviews, I take the first impression of listening to the work as a clue, then repeatedly confirm and disprove while listening many times, putting my thoughts into words.

Sometimes the first impression lands as the conclusion as is, and sometimes while writing, I arrive at a completely different destination. That’s why it feels like wandering in the darkness relying on a single ray of light while lost.

Yes, I’m writing while losing something and finding something. Even if it’s not the destination I envisioned, there’s no right or wrong answer. That too is the truth for me.

About 『LOST AND FOUND』

And coincidentally, ROTH BART BARON’s 『LOST AND FOUND』 is also, true to its title, a work born from repeating loss and discovery across borders.

First, let’s look back at the previous album 『8』.

It was the first album after Masaya Mifune moved to Berlin, and was created with the motivation to make a work that would destroy their previous selves as the beginning of a new challenge.

As I told him directly during the 『8』 interview, ROTH BART BARON has been a band that consistently sings about human karma and activities since their debut, not unchanging things, but always wearing the atmosphere unique to each era.

However, they dismantled that established ROTH BART BARON, faced their roots once again, and made a fresh start.

As a result, it became a festive album where guitars, percussion, synths, horns, and all instruments danced and bounced, playing light and cheerful sounds.

『LOST AND FOUND』 also continues with the same formation from 『8』, a work that deepens more primitively and pastorally, while also being a work where Masaya Mifune found joy in singing again, not as a band but as a singer-songwriter.

Thinking about it, as far as I’m aware, Masaya Mifune moved to Berlin around autumn 2022, and after starting a dual-base life with Tokyo, triggered by Chiba Yusuke’s death,

he posted on SNS a video covering Thee Michelle Gun Elephant’s “Sekai no Owari” (The End of the World), after which singing videos of his own songs increased,

and especially in the past year, he’s been posting more videos covering artists he respects, past and present.

For cover songs, he plays simply on electric or acoustic guitar while just focusing on singing, vocalizing carefully and sometimes boldly.

While you can’t capture his facial expressions there, his singing voice reflects Masaya Mifune as a person more directly than facial expressions.

In that sense too, it’s natural that this became a work facing his own roots, and it makes sense that joy in singing is evident.

I discovered that Mifune found joy in singing again as a singer-songwriter in the album’s first track “CRYSTAL (feat. Moeka Shiotsuka),” who also collaborated on the “BLUE SOULS” remix,

and was a guest at “BEAR NIGHT,” ROTH BART BARON’s annual summer event.

Her voice’s fluency is wonderful, of course, and Mifune’s voice accompanying it is also truly expansive and sounds comfortable.

The sound and percussion themselves are simple, woven with fantastical decoration, yet full of openness.

When the following “Kitsunebi – Fly to a Flame” had the same tone, it became certainty. What this sound guarantees is what makes him feel best while singing.

If 『8』 was a festive work expressing the joy of making sound, with instruments dancing and bouncing while playing light and cheerful sounds, then 『LOST AND FOUND』 is a work that faces the joy of singing.

Not sound to enhance the voice, not neglecting the playing at all, but sound created after exploring what makes singing feel good.

Making your own songs and singing them yourself—thinking about singer-songwriters.
You don’t have to make songs to save someone else.
It’s okay to sing to feel good yourself, to save yourself.

Rather, precisely because of that, it can sometimes move people’s hearts. While listening to 『LOST AND FOUND』, I think such things.

ROTH BART BARON, who has consistently sung about human karma and activities, has expressed Masaya Mifune as a person exactly as he is in this 『LOST AND FOUND』.

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