Moonchild Sanelly - real name Sanelisiwe Twisha - announces her long-awaited second album. The trailblazing South African musician signed to Transgressive Records in 2020, kicking off with diverse mini-LP Nüdes. Now, she returns to the international label with her genre-crossing second album Phases. Forming a sonic foundation that veers between Amapiano, Gqom, grime, pop, house and R&B while showcasing her vocal talents on more downtempo songs, Phases 19-tracks document the varying chapters of a toxic relationship and subsequent freedom. A double album, the first side is a journey through the relationship with production reflecting those different moods and aspects of her personality; the second side, meanwhile, leads into a clubbier amapiano space.

Diana King's sophomore outing Think Like a Girl is a well-crafted, diverse set of soul/pop/reggae that merited much more attention it received. The album contains several ultra catchy songs that have hit written all over them, namely the infectious title track and "Wicked." King is also an extremely earnest and sincere singer, and nowhere is that more evident than on the album's 30-second a cappella interlude "Mi Coffee." On some tunes, such as "Love Yourself" and the single "L-L-Lies," King sings in her trademark, powerful reggae style. On others, such as her sexy and breathy remake of Culture Club's classic "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" and "Find My Way Back," King's performance is more traditional and subdued, yet just as effective.

As the 70s drew to a close, the roots and dub sounds that had dominated the Jamaican music scene for much of the decade gave way to dancehall, a style that continued to find favour with reggae fans until the onset of the digital revolution of the mid-1980s. Aimed squarely at satisfying the demands of live audiences, songwriters largely abandoned the conscious lyrics that had typified the music of the preceding years, focusing instead on subjects which with their Jamaican audiences could readily identify.

There was a time when Gregory Isaacs and Dennis Brown were the two most popular reggae singers in Jamaica. That and the fact that all of these songs were produced by Gussie Clarke at the legendary Channel One studio appear to be the two reasons for the configuration of this strange but attractive set, on which the two singers alternate songs (except for "Let Off Sup'm," which features both of them). Actually, the most significant unifying feature of this album is the constant presence of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare's Revolutionaries band, who play on all tracks, and of the vocal group Tetrack, who sing backup and whose leader wrote most of the songs. The songs are uniformly great – apart from their duet, Brown delivers the excellent "Crazy List," "Judge Not," "Deceiving Girl" and "To the Foundation" (note Sly Dunbar's brilliant drumming on that last track), while Gregory turns in "Live & Love," "Street Walker" and "Innercity Lady." The program may appear skimpy at first glance, but each song is presented in "showcase" format (i.e., with dub version appended), so most tracks last over seven minutes. Highly recommended.