Charlotte Plank: Amplifying the Sound of a Generation
Courtesy of Frederick Wilkinson
11th July 2025
By Frankie Collins
Behind the basslines and dancefloor drops, the singer-songwriter is weaving melancholic storytelling into the fabric of youth culture.
If coming-of-age in your twenties had a sonic signature, Charlotte Plank would be producing it. Her tracks hit like diary entries dressed up in rave-ready syncopation – confessional, euphoric, and always one Marlboro Gold away from a breakdown in the smoking area. She coined it ‘melatronic’: a fusion of melancholy songwriting with an electronic pulse. Everyone else? They're just trying to catch up.
Courtesy of Frederick Wilkinson
“Ask me anything,” she says – and she means it. No rehearsed answers here, just honest truth. “Dance music’s always been in my blood,” Plank tells me, her silver shades glinting in the haze of the late June sun. “My parents met in the rave scene over in Australia – my uncle DJ’d with Carl Cox in the early days, at those warehouse raves in Melbourne.” Born Down Under but raised in London, Plank absorbed her earliest musical education from the eclectic mixtapes her mum spun in the car – think The Cure, Nirvana, Otis Redding and Stevie Wonder. “I owe all my music taste to my mum – she’s a bit of a legend”, she smiles. Soul, punk, indie and eventually the harmonic grit of Amy Winehouse, the sly lyricism of Lily Allen, and the glitchy ambience of Aphex Twin and Imogen Heap all etched themselves into her sonic DNA.
By her teens, Plank was singing in London pubs, slipping into squat raves and mainlining the heady highs of community-led DnB. “The kind of DnB I really loved was Calibre, LTJ Bukem... people that sampled old records. Melodic, liquid DnB. And Goldie – he definitely influenced my sound.” Her style carries echoes of jungle’s rhythm, garage’s swing, and the undercurrents of 2-step. London’s post-club culture – and Australia’s DIY rave ethos – remain her dual anchor points. “To be brought up in the UK, around London, really inspired who I am and my sound as an artist. I did my first tour over there at Christmas [Australia] – it’s crazy.”
Courtesy of Frederick Wilkinson
But for all the chaos of her clubland origin story, Plank’s relationship with music has always been steady at the core. “It’s always been the most constant thing in my life. You fall in and out of love with it, sure, but I always come back.” After studying music tech and English literature at college, she opted against uni: “I just wanted to get out and do it.” Her hustle paid off. Following her self-released single ‘Hate Me’ (2022), Plank made a name for herself when she featured on two Rudimental tracks ‘Dancing Is Healing’ (2023) and ‘Green & Gold’, featuring Skepsis and Riko Dan (2024).
Now, the singer-songwriter is leading a new wave of emotional storytelling through the lens of the dancefloor. Her debut EP, ‘ClubLiminal’ (2025), is exactly what it sounds like: a portrait of in-between states, captured through glimmers of self-doubt, freedom and transformation. “It’s all based around being in a transitional time... every song is about different experiences that come with finding out who you are, trying on different versions of yourself.”
Among the most intimate cuts is ‘Ellen’, named after her middle name and written as a quiet address to her earlier identity. “It’s an ode to my younger self, when she was going through a bit of a rough time with life and music, and I didn’t really know where I was going,” she explains. “It’s like Ellen, if you can make it past 27... what a legacy. Like Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain… they made such an impact in a short amount of time. It sounds quite dark, but if you can make it to that and make a name for yourself, you’ll be fine. Just hold on.”
Courtesy of Frederick Wilkinson
Each track, she says, is its “own little world of an experience,” and she wants listeners to feel like they’re slipping into a private moment: “A lot of the songs are those in-between moments. On the way to a night out, or on the way back... where you’re coming down on the bus and you realise how you feel about someone.” She doesn’t mince her words: “Not all sad songs have to be a fucking ballad on the piano. You can dress them up in a dance tune that you can lose yourself in.” Her debut 2022 single ‘Hate Mate’ tapped into this feeling: self-sabotaging and raw, but delivered with a bouncy, irresistible rhythm. “It’s a running theme in my music – deeper, darker stories you can either take at surface level, or dive into properly.”
The club, naturally, is both a backdrop and metaphor in her music. But it’s one she worries is fading fast. “I’ve done some uni shows and chatted to promoters, and they’re like, yeah, they’re just so poorly attended now. It’s so sad.” For her, clubbing isn’t just escapism – it’s a cultural cornerstone. “Kids are isolated at home. These industries are being starved of income and being forced to close. It’s really concerning.” Even festivals, she says, feel uncertain. “It used to be a rite of passage - you’d go to a festival at 16 after your GCSEs. Do kids even do that anymore?” She’s fiercely vocal about the decline of nightlife, working with grassroots campaigners like George Fleming (Founder of Save Our Scene) to fight for the ecosystem that raised her. “He’s been really great at campaigning for the night-time industry... We need more people like that. More artists need to step up to support these venues.” She also champions safer, more inclusive spaces – especially in dance music. “A lot of music lineups can be very male-heavy – especially in the DnB world. But that’s changing. There are a lot of amazing females making waves now.”
Courtesy of Frederick Wilkinson
Despite her rising profile, fame hasn’t thrown Plank off course. “I still feel like the exact same person. I half live at home, half live at my boyfriend’s. I’ve always looked after my mum and my brother... I don’t take anything for granted.” She’s been driven not just by ambition, but a deep-rooted sense of responsibility. “I work so hard – and my mum’s worked so hard to help me and my brother get our dream jobs. She’s like a little witch meddling every night,” she laughs. Even when she hits career milestones – like playing Glastonbury – she keeps pushing her creativity forward. “There’s no ceiling – which is amazing, but kind of torturous. It’s like a revolving door of what’s next.”
Her recently wrapped string of live shows brought emotional and electronic elements to light. “I really wanted a full band to bring it to life... live drums, but also cello and guitar. It makes the set so much more dynamic.” The result? A fanbase as diverse as her influences: “40-year-old dads coming on their own, ex-ravers, young kids discovering dance music for the first time... pop girlies who’ve never been into dance before.”And then there are the surreal moments – like the viral video of the fan who jumped the fence at Glastonbury 2024 just to hear his favourite Charlotte Plank song. “Oh my god, that was so mad. I was like, is this real, or a setup?!”
Courtesy of Frederick Wilkinson
As ever, Plank is already onto the next thing. “There’s loads of new music coming – some of it was ready even before this EP. It’s another switch up, but it still feels true to me.” There’s talk of festival sets, next level collaborations and a summer of releases. Her playful energy is palpable. “I’m raring to go,” she beams.
CREDITS:
Producer: Bethan Dadson
Photographer: Frederick Wilkinson
Photo Assist: Harry Chapman
Creative Director: Ronita Awoonor-Gordon
Fashion/Beauty Director: Bethan Dadson
Stylist: Miruna Cotletz
Makeup Artist: Chloe Rose
Hairstylist: Porco Yosuke
Styling Assistant: Adam Raillard
Styling Assistant: Freya Lennard
Styling Assistant: Lizbeth E Peña Pilla
Runner: Hermine Patch
Interviewer: Frankie Collins