Long-running punk / counter-culture imprint TPOS dived into even more obscure recordings from Manson's late 60s pre-indictment musical period with the full-length Unfiltered cassette. This hodgepodge of hard-to-find recordings from the infamous cult leader showed up in 2020, and is mainly comprised of the September 1967 "demo session" for the LIE album. That session, produced by well-known publicist, author and promoter Gary Stromberg (also an agent for The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd), came together just six months after Manson's parole from McNeil Island Prison in Washington state and his subsequent move to the Haight-Ashbury District in San Francisco; from what I can tell, was his first actual studio session ever. There is an air of foreboding around this boot that exists on multiple levels, particularly if you're familiar with the details of the events that led up to the horrific Tate-LaBianca murders. At the time of this September 11th, 1967 recording session at Universal Studios in Hollywood, CA, Manson had thoroughly become embroiled in the thriving hippie counterculture, the "Summer Of Love", and avid use of psychedelics. His role as the leader for the notorious doomsday cult was in its earliest stages; around this time, he was beginning to gather a growing number of impressionable and easily-influenced devotees, and the main focus at that time appeared to be his attempt to kick-start his musical career. As both a piece of Manson musical arcana and late 60s counterculture history, this is a fascinating listen.

There's also the "outsider music" element to Manson's work, both solo and with his gang of inveigled followers. That's even more apparent on these types of "demo" recordings, along with his prison recordings. It appears that the twenty-five songs unearthed here make up the entire session, and like other Manson-related musical efforts, it's allover the place in more ways than one. The songs range from primordial versions of some of his better known songs on LIE, to a bunch of obscurities and experiments that I don't think I've ever heard anywhere else. Per the minor liner notes included with the tape, it's a much more raw and immediate performance, largely improvised, and a keystone for the strange outsider psych folk / gutter blues / stream of consciousness ranting that was his hallmark. There's a lot to chew on here. Listening to Unfiltered is a weird sort of verite experience, loaded with chatter and studio banter and Charlie ruminating on his creative process while stoned giggling bubbles up in the background. The entire set is filled with Manson's odd banter and chatter as he moves from semi-improvised versions of songs like "Sick City", and the ever-haunting "Look At Your Game, Girl" (both of which would later show up on LIE). But it's the other "forgotten" pieces of music that intrigue me: there is something occasionally bewitching about his music, as distasteful as it seems. The sessions spills over with strange and ramshackle sounds, a rather colossal batch of music that only appears here ("Run For Fun", "Clang Bang Clang", "Invisible Tears", "Monkey", "Lock & Loll", "Ego is a Too Much Thing", "Now is the Time", "The House of Tomorrow", "Close to Me", "She Done Turned Me In", "Twilight Blues", "Your Daddy's Home", "Devil Man", "The More You Love", "Two Pair Of Shoes", "Maiden With Green Eyes (Remember Me)", "Swamp Girl", "Bet You Think I Care", "Who To Blame", "My World", "True Love You Will Find" and "The Night Life"). Much of this recording would end up being tacked on to various later bootlegs and reissues of LIE, but here they are in their original environment and sequence, which in and of itself is a strange and at times bewildering thing, falling into the free flow of Manson's delirium. Songs stumble to a halt, materializing as half-thought visions or surreal rock n' roll riffs, shambolic strumming and soulful, gravelly singing mixed with that unsettlingly stirring and tremulous voice, freely improvising on the spot, veering into fragmented and ecstatic drone-folk, bouts of dilapidated psychedelia, primitive hypno-country/western trance-states, doom-laden booze-addled blues with lyrics stretching across the realms of criminal activities, "free love", the presence of strange and dreamlike women, domestic strife, and weirder, less decipherable proclamations of expanding consciousness, absurdism, and dark futures. It really is a strange collection of songs, accidentally outre, documenting the unusual creativity of a man and his crowd that sparked for a period of time, before the group devolved into heinous, atrocious crimes. A fascinating piece of millennial apocalypse culture.

Note: TPOS points out that the second side of the tape/session is slightly murkier / more lo-fi due to the condition of the source materials; it's not a severe drop in quality, mainly marred by what sounds like vinyl crackle.