THE music career of Newcastle indie-pop artist Teleah Riordan, aka Teddie, might only be three singles old, but the signs are all positive.
Beginning with her 2020 debut Call Me, the 22-year-old has been on an upward trajectory in terms of popularity with her subsequent singles Lightning Macqueen and Good Grief. The latter has been streamed more than 67,000 times on Spotify.
Teddie's also attracted attention from all the right places when she scored a set at Maitland's Groovin The Moo in May as a triple j's Unearthed winner.
"That was amazing as I'd released songs, but hadn't done live stuff for long going into that," Riordan said. "That was huge accomplishment for myself.
"I'm just stoked people are listening, because at the start I really had no expectations."
Riordan is ready to keep Teddie's momentum growing on Friday when she releases her new single Sleep In. The track was co-written with Riley Smith from Brisbane indie band Ivey over Zoom during the depths of the pandemic.
"We're on the same label [Mirror Music Group] so they teed it up and I was like, 'why not'," she said.
"So we kind of met on that Zoom, wrote the song that day over a couple of hours and that was it."
The theme of sleeping in was also born out of COVID.
"It was something we did and it made sense at the time because with everything it the best part of the day, just staying in bed," she said.
Sleep In, along with Lightning Macqueen and Good Grief will appear on Teddie's debut five-track EP Theodore in August. The EP was produced by Vacations frontman Campbell Burns.
Riordan said the music was inspired by her love of female bedroom-pop acts like Clairo and Beabadoobee and US breakout pop-star Olivia Rodrigo.
"It's not like it has a theme or I wrote it all at the same time," Riordan said. "It was this collection of songs that I love and they fit together, but they're quite different."
Teddie is slowly building her fan base by supporting rising indie bands Egoism and Stumps and she will perform a hometown show at the Cambridge Hotel's Mates festival on July 29, which was curated by Vacations.
