Bandcamp revives 1999 minimal techno EP by The Stripper, Melchior, Ford

Bandcamp has put back into circulation a small but telling slice of late-1990s minimal techno: The Stripper, Thomas Melchior and Peter Ford’s Come And Get It (Act 1&2) / After Dark EP. The digital reissue arrived on June 18, and for minimal heads its value is in the shape of the record itself, three compact cuts that feel built for stripped-down, nocturnal momentum rather than obvious hooks.

The EP first came out as a 1999 vinyl 12-inch on PAL SL Records in London under catalog number SL6. It was recorded and mixed at Ifach Studio London that same year, then mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering in Berlin, with artwork by Matt Cooper. That production path reads like a map of the era’s functional elegance: a London studio, a Berlin mastering bench, and a record designed to hold back just enough to let the groove do the work.

Peter Ford, better known as Baby Ford, was already a foundational UK acid-house figure by the time he launched PAL SL in 1996. After stepping away from major-label work, he moved back into the underground with exploratory techno on Ifach, and his partnership with Thomas Melchior ran through projects such as Soul Capsule and Sunpeople. The new digital edition does more than make an old 12-inch easier to stream. It reconnects newer listeners to a long-running collaboration that helped define a particularly taut strain of minimal and stripped-down club music before the streaming era made every archive feel instantly accessible.

Becker’s credit deepens that lineage. He had worked at Dubplates & Mastering since 1997, and the studio itself was founded in 1995 by Basic Channel, placing the EP inside one of techno’s most respected sonic ecosystems. That matters because releases like this are rarely just collector bait. They show how much of minimal techno’s micro-history depends on precise engineering, careful spacing, and records that still make sense when a DJ stretches them into a longer set narrative.

The return of Come And Get It (Act 1&2) / After Dark feels useful in exactly that old-school way. It brings back a compact piece of the Melchior-Ford continuum and reminds newer listeners that some of minimal techno’s most durable moments were built not for nostalgia, but for the dark, patient mechanics of the room.