Jackson Free Press

If album titles like "The Coming of the Winter Warlock" and "Dance of the Enchanted Fetus" bring to mind epic tales of fantasy, you're on the right track. That's exactly the exhilarating, fun atmosphere that the psychedelic-soul rockers of Omingnome want listeners to feel in their music.

The band is busy kicking off "The Year of Healing," a four-stage tour that follows the transformative life cycle of a butterfly: caterpillar, cocoon, butterfly and laying her eggs. In the first explorative segment, the band members will make stops at venues where they've never played. As it happens, one of those is Jackson's Soul Wired Cafe on Wednesday, Dec. 3.

In just two years, Omingnome has already released two EPs, launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to purchase a vegetable-oil-powered bus and earned a loyal fan base in its hometown of Savannah, Ga., where all of the members met through work and social circles.

When guitarist Tyler Cutitta moved to Savannah from Brooklyn, N.Y., in 2012, an acquaintance told him about singer Melissa Hagerty, who was searching for a music producer. Shortly after, he began driving pedicabs—bike taxis—around the city as a side job, where he met co-workers and band mates, drummer Eric Braun and bassist Tony Bavaro, who moved to Savannah the same exact day Cutitta did. It wasn't long before the quartet began performing as a unit.

One of Omingnome's strengths is the ability to improvise on stage, from Cutitta's effects-laden guitar work to Hagerty's shifting melodies and delivery.

"I feel like we have a good connection live where we can risk going into something we haven't tried. Even vocally, Melissa's got an incredible ability to just get a melody over something," Cutitta says. "It makes it very interesting to write guitar parts for me personally."

Omingnome also has an unofficial fifth member, though his instruments work a bit differently. Projectionist Simon Ross, a friend of Cutitta who also moved from Brooklyn, is the mind behind Omingnome's "liquid light," a visual element that he created for the band's live performances. Ross is traveling with the band for its current tour, along with friends Kelly Klo and Lauren Schwind, who are documenting the tour through video and photos.

While psychedelic influence is clear in Omingnome, elements of funk, soul and R&B also take center stage at times. The variety makes it challenging to classify the band, so Cutitta prefers a less common term: "gnomish." It's a reference to the group's supernatural themes and a reminder for the band not to take things too seriously. Cutitta tells a story of Tibetan monks who force themselves to laugh. Eventually, that forced laughter becomes genuine. That's a bit like what Omingnome does.

"We have these good intentions we put into the music. We want it to heal, we want it to help people, and we want it to be a little political, where it gets people thinking about what's going on in our world," he says. That doesn't mean standing on a soapbox and shouting about social issues, though. Instead, Cutitta says, an Omingnome show should feel like seeing an old friend.

"You go from an experience like that where you're around all these like-minded thinkers, and then you go back to maybe something in more structured society," he says. "You kind of feel like, 'Hm. That feeling was a little nicer than this, wasn't it?'"

Omingnome performs at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 3, at Soul Wired Cafe (111 Millsaps Ave., 601-863-6378). The band's music is available for free or by donation at omingnome.com.