Every year since 2012, we have been treated to a quality collaborative compilation between the iconic Malignant Records—a label that I recently described as “the leading name releasing the new generation of old-school industrial and dark ambient music today”—and arguably the strongest digital label that our scene has to offer in Kalpamantra. Originally finding a run as The Malignant Series, the annual compilation found a life of its own last year with Endless Descent Into Oblivion: a thirty-nine-track marathon of nearly perverse audial violence (The Vomit Arsonist‘s “Failed”; T.O.M.B.‘s “Purge”) and, even more so, seething wretched atmospheres (Steel Hook Prostheses‘ “Maggotry and the Sepulcher of Flies”; Jarl‘s “The Great Moloch; Yen Pox & Funerary Call‘s “Birth Lurker”). 2015’s edition, The Earthen Siphon, takes a small step back in terms of endurance at “a mere” thirty-three tracks (note the sarcasm), but the quality will no doubt remain incredibly high as most artists appear to be returning from last year, while a few notable new faces—Abjection Ritual, Sphäre Sechs, and Climax Denial—have either already been impressing us for years elsewhere, or have recently blown us away. Hall of Mirrors, for instance, seems to have come out of nowhere for this compilation after three solid years of silence, and their track “Forbidden Zone”—a creeping abyss of desperate dread that could have come straight out of Tarkovsky‘s Stalker—has been fittingly used for this teaser.

Featuring Theologian, Gnawed, Sewer Goddess, Abandoned Asylum, Aderlating, Xiphoid Dementia, and many more, The Earthen Siphon is now available via bandcamp.