Cosmic exploration. Spiritual transformation. Unbridled spontaneity. These are the guiding principles of Pigeon, a psychedelic five-piece who hail from the English seaside but make music that transcends borders. Their debut album, OUTTANATIONAL, is a thrilling collection of party songs without limits: think William Onyeabor in outer-space or early Hot Chip making nocturnal afrobeat in a 70s New York loft. Building on a string of acclaimed EPs that have been playlisted on 6Music and led to coveted live slots at UK festivals like Glastonbury, Pigeon have evolved out of Afro-disco territory into something moodier and more motorik. It’s an expansive record indebted to the power of the groove and questing to find the meaning of home, laced with heady krautrock, post-punk and punk-funk.

Pigeon are Falle Nioke (vocals, percussion), Graham Godfrey (drums), Josh Ludow (bass), Steve Pringle (keys, synths) and Tom Dream (guitar), musicians who have all come from elsewhere and have landed in Margate, Kent. Between them, they’ve worked with the likes of Little Simz, Michael Kiwanuka, SAULT and Saul Williams, while Ludlow is also in production duo Make A Dance and Godfrey, in alt soul duo Thandii. The origin myth goes that the five Pigeon members had watched England lose a football match in a local pub and decided to go back to Dream’s house to jam out the disappointment. Despite their disparate influences, the band chemistry “was immediately undeniable,” says Godfrey. “We knew that we were onto something special.”

The combination of Falle Nioke’s musicality, rooted in the West African griot tradition, and the band member’s western pop influences is potent. Nioke’s voice has a rare versatility that elevates any sound the band plays, unsticking the group from the rigid confines of genre. The Guinean musician sings in one of many languages that come to him in the moment – including French, English, Susu, Fulani, Malinke and Coniagui – and plays a range of traditional African instruments to accompany his voice (gongoma, bolon, cassi). “It felt like there was a real freedom with Falle’s vocals; there were no limits,” says Tom Dream. Their creative process is fuelled by improvisation, recorded live and in the moment, but their lead singer’s intuition steered the sessions. “I won’t sing on something if I’m not feeling it,” says Nioke. “The magic is the compass,” adds Graham Godfrey.

Recorded between the Albion Rooms in Margate and Big Jelly Studios in Ramsgate, OUTTANATIONAL hones in on the idea of home, both physical and spiritual. “It definitely sounds a bit like Margate,” says Godfrey. “The sound of the album, for me, is when it’s a blustery, overcast day and then you go into the amusement arcades and the penny slots are lighting up – it’s stimulation overload. Our sound feels like an explosion of colour among the grey.” The project has a certain quirky, DIY charm, with film-maker Dream building ambitious props for their music videos, while Steve Pringle’s home-built synthesizers add washes of spacey atmosphere. At times it feels like you’re dropping into a sound laboratory, beaming between planets, like on the stompy, Gang Of Four-inspired mutant disco of ‘Mirror Test’. “His synth lines reach those outer limits, the horizon lines that we’re trying to get to and don’t know where they go,” Godfrey adds.

For Nioke, the studio was a space to escape the pressures he felt around the concept of home at that time. “When we were writing this album, I was in the process of being naturalised in the UK,” he explains, having relocated from Guinea-Conakry in 2018. “That was on my mind all the time, what it means to be African and British. Most of the songs on the album come from that.” He was exasperated by the examination prep and felt caught between two places. “I went through those exams four times,” he says. “The fifth time, I passed! Now I’m pleased to be part of both homes. One side is Africa, the other side is here.”

You can hear him wrestling with foreboding spirits on gothic afrobeat track ‘NRG’ (“My energy / That’s what they want to take from me”) and on ‘Hype Prototype’, a Kraftwerk-by-sea number that sounds like something DFA would have remixed (“Take me to another place / Where I can just be myself”). The masterful ‘Black James Dean’, meanwhile, channels a frustrated longing for freedom. An ancestral post-punk song with verses that feel like incantations, Nioke sees himself as a roving cowboy, riding his horse between countries: “All my ancestors was travellers / I am black gypsy and I’m proud of it”.

There’s evocative imagery throughout OUTTANATIONAL. On the synth-pop-dappled ‘Miami’, Nioke envisions that the unglamorous Margate skyline could be the Magic City: “If you close your eyes it’s just like Miami / Pink hotel palm tree / Leisure ice cream.” And on the jerky, punk-funk-fuelled ‘Future Country’, Pigeon take a time machine through the cosmos and imagines the immigration process in centuries to come amid clattering percussion. “Will they want me in the future country?,” the band chorus, “Will they need me in the future city?”

OUTTANATIONAL is the sound of five musicians having the most fun they can. No restrictions. No guide rails. Just tuning into the groove and locking into what matters. “One of the things about being a session musician for a long time is that it’s very easy to get jaded, especially the way the music industry has been for the last 20 years,” says Godfrey. “It’s very difficult to remain connected to the music.” But he says that working with Nioke has helped to restore his faith. “I’ll never forget that, at Glastonbury, the first thing he did every morning when he woke up in the tent was sing. It’s such an important reminder to have that reverence for the music making process. That’s what’s at the heart of this band, I think.”

At the heart of OUTTANATIONAL, there’s a hopefulness. The album ends with a stunning piano prayer, ‘Caramel’, where Nioke thanks the ancestors and asks them to look after us. And penultimate track ‘Today Is Another Day’ is an optimistic space-disco heater that swaggers across the desert like it’s in a spaghetti western, spurs jangling with each stomp. It speaks to the band’s motto, “Pigeon must fly”, which comes from a magical idea from Nioke’s homeland, where pigeons are spiritual beings that represent freedom and prosperity.

“It’s this idea of moving forward, not looking back,” says Dream. “That goes for how we compose music and how we want to approach life.”

“No matter the obstacle, we have to fly,” says Nioke.