Geryah Dingle Releases New Single ‘Missionary’

An encouraging new single ahead of her upcoming Christian Indie Folk-Pop EP

Photo by Richard Terry

Newly minted Christian Indie folk-pop artist Geryah Dingle conveys a message of hope in her new song, "Missionary." She earnestly champions grace on the Daniel de Booij-produced track, but this gift is not just for the high and mighty. Ultimately, the song posits that God accepts us, even in our turmoil: "I can't even proudly tell you my story. If it weren't for His love and His precious glory that He could look down on this earthly body and love me… still."

"Missionary" is about a conversation between two people: The "know-it-all" and "the-guy-who-has-been-there-before." Essentially, the know-it-all is making up a bunch of excuses why coming to terms with his faith is a lost cause, and the other guy is like, "it's not too late...even for you because He changed me."

Geryah started the project with the original record she recorded on May 3, 2011. It was a raw iPhone voice memo. Looking back, she said, "I probably did 3-4 takes, and then the song just came."

She and Daniel re-worked the arrangement a bit to give the song a bit more depth. They added to the "stickiness" factor by starting with the chorus as the central message of the track and breaking out the bridge to have a big final chorus with all the background vocals you hear present.

Geryah felt like the song deserved some additional instruments and players apart from the guitar while working on it. Daniel finished recording the guitar parts with the guitarist and added a bassist, a percussionist, and a drummer. Daniel also played some piano parts with a Rhodes and a Wurlitzer to give the track something extra. They layered in some additional percussion here and there as the mix started to come together, and that was the basis for recording the released vocals.

Geryah tracked her parts out of her home studio and sent Daniel her processed lead vocal track and an unprocessed one with the LA-2 compressor in bypass; that gave him some extra room to work on the lead. She left her original processing chain on the backing vocals. He took care of all the noise reduction, normalizing, de-essing, and tuning where necessary.

After working the track for a bit, Geryah and Daniel felt like they needed to add some harmonies in the chorus and bridge, so she went back and recorded some extra lines where she doubled the hook to get a bigger sound in the mix. That allowed the chorus to break open even more. She also added some higher harmonies to the bridge.

Daniel mixed in the extra vocals. Those parts are pretty much in the background, but they give a feeling of depth and width in the chorus. It also "adds just a little bit of energy that we were missing, said Daniel." That was the final piece.

Geryah and Daniel worked on the project for seven weeks, remotely, and brought the track to life, from a simple demo recording to a musical piece of which they could be proud.

This song was indeed a labor of love, and it provides an encouraging word to anyone who thinks they are beyond saving.

The "Missionary" worldwide debut is June 18, 2021, on all platforms.

Listen Here.