Moonchild Sanelly - Phases (2LP)

Moonchild Sanelly’s Phases arrived on 10 June 2022 via Transgressive Records, and it lands like a neon-lit dispatch from the club, the bedroom, and the boardroom all at once. If you’ve followed the South African multi-hyphenate since her breakout turns in gqom circles and that scene-stealing feature on Beyoncé’s The Lion King: The Gift track My Power, this full-length feels like the moment her world opens up. She has long called her sound future ghetto punk, and Phases backs that up with a swagger that flips between rap, chant, and hooky pop in a blink, then pulls you back in with percussion that hits like it was soldered together in Durban and polished in London.

The album’s title isn’t cute branding. It maps how many rooms she can light up at once, and how quickly she moves between pleasure and cash-talk, lust and self-preservation. You hear it straight away in the way she stacks tough bass with glossy synth colour, then lets her voice slice through, sometimes puncturing the beat, sometimes gliding over it. Her writing is frank and funny, but it is also strategic. She spells out the rules of engagement and makes them catchy enough for a singalong. That mix of sharp edges and pop instinct is why Phases clicked beyond the dance underground.

The singles did a lot of the heavy lifting. Strip Club, featuring UK veteran Ghetts, is a brilliant clash of accents and attitudes, with a low-end throb that feels engineered for late-night radio as much as sticky floors. The dynamic makes perfect sense. Ghetts brings clipped precision, Moonchild pushes the hook into the red, and the track just cruises. Then there is Cute, with Leicester rapper Trillary Banks. It is flirty and spiky, a grin you can hear, full of bratty asides that double as mission statements. Both tracks set the tone for an album that treats sex positivity as both banner and armour.

Across Phases you can pick out pieces from gqom and amapiano, but the palette is wider. There are pop choruses built to lodge in your head, hip hop drum programming that keeps the energy high, and little production flickers that feel lifted from UK bass music. She slips between English and South African slang, letting rhythm drive the meaning even when the lines are blunt enough on their own. Crucially, the record does not flatten into one pace. The club workouts sit next to moments that feel confessional, and those quieter turns add weight to the bravado. You can hear how carefully sequenced it is, how she wants the floor-fillers to hit, then uses the next track to switch the lens.

Phases also shows how collaborative Moonchild can be without losing her centre. The guests fold into her orbit rather than redirect it. That is a sign of a strong producer’s hand and an artist who knows exactly where the spotlight should fall. It also makes the album replayable. You come back for the punchlines, then stay for the way the rhythm section keeps surprising you. On headphones, the kicks feel tactile and the sub has that chewy bounce that South African dance music does so well, but the songwriting never gets lost. She is always anchoring the chaos with a sharp refrain.

As a package, Phases works because it understands the dancefloor and the feed. Hooks stick. Beats slap. Yet the personality running through it is lived-in rather than algorithmic. Moonchild’s path from local hero to global festival billing has not sanded off her edges. If anything, the reach has sharpened her writing, renewing the spark that first got heads turning in Durban clubs and then in studios far from home.

If you are crate-digging for Moonchild Sanelly vinyl, Phases is the one that makes sense to spin and to shelve. The Transgressive pressing gives the low end room to breathe, and the artwork pops, so it looks the part next to other Moonchild Sanelly albums on vinyl. Hunt down Phases vinyl through your favourite Melbourne record store, or buy Moonchild Sanelly records online if you are further afield. It sits nicely in a stack of contemporary African club sounds, UK rap curios, and pop outliers, and it turns heads when the sleeve peeks out of a crate. For anyone building a collection that connects the dots between gqom, amapiano, and punchy pop-rap, this is a keeper, and it has already become a quiet favourite in plenty of vinyl records Australia collections.