POX: Forced Exposure's Catalogue

Quick Forced Exposure question: On their website, they list 219 Medford Street, Malden, MA as their address. Is this just some big warehouse where they store all the CDs they eventually ship to people who buy stuff from their website, or is this location actually a record store I can go in, browse, and buy stuff from?

Google streetview makes it look more like a warehouse district.

I hope that in the intervening 7 hours you just decided to try and go there and find out for yourself.

"Helloooo? Anybody in here? Is this a CD store?"

this looks good! http://www.forcedexposure.com/Labels/BULL.TONGUE.REVIEW.html
A Quarterly Journal of Post-Rock Cultural Pluralism. In this issue: Todd Abramson, Steve Albini, Alan Bishop, Bree, Rej T. Broth, Joe Carducci, Lisa Carver, Benoit Chaput, Sharon Cheslow, Byron Coley, Karen Constance, Nigel Cross, Chris D, Irene Dogmatic, Lili Dwight, Ray Farrell, Andrea Feldman, Tom Givan Tom Greenwood, Mats Gustafsson, Angela Jaeger, Elaine Kahn, Ira Kaplan, Maria Kozic, Matt Krefting, Ted Lee, Donna Lethal, Owen Maercks, Marc Masters, Hisham Mayet, Richard Meltzer, Thurston Moore, Dylan Nyoukis, Gary Panter, Tony Rettman, Bruce Russell, Suzy Rust, Andy Schwartz, Brian Turner, Naomi Yang Ω. 50 pages, black & white 8.5" x 11".

Random question for anyone that regularly orders from Forced Exposure - I placed my first order with them about three weeks ago and realized I hadn't seen an update, logged in and saw that my order is "on hold" due to "not sufficient quantity". I know I selected the option to have everything shipped at once, so I don't mind waiting, but I'm confused since when I search for both the items I ordered on the site, even today, it lists them both as being in stock. Is this common?

"low stock level" seems to mean not in stock for them? items listed that way aren't eligible when they have sales. could be what's hanging it up, they're trying to source those records.

you will get shipping notification when your order ships, and they'll reach out (after awhile) if they can't source something.

Thanks, yeah, one of the two does say "low stock level", that must be it. I'll wait and see what happens.

So a further month on and I still haven't heard a single word from them about my order. It's a killer catalog but I gotta say that this is not impressing me for my first time ordering from them direct. I've had other shops with sourcing issues, which is totally fine and happens sometimes, but I usually get at least an email letting me know what's up.

I know there have been issues lately with sourcing records, I had kind of a similar issue earlier this yr though I eventually got my records. Have you sent them an email? Sometimes it takes a bit for a response but I've never had a problem sorting things out with them over email.

I'm going to send them an email today to check in. Obviously I don't mind waiting (given that's it's been more than six weeks) and I get that things are screwy right now, was just hoping I'd have an update from them. Thanks for the nudge though.

Also the last six months is the only time I've ever experienced any sort of delay or long waits when ordering from FE in probably 20-ish yrs

That's good to know. I've always heard good things, just hadn't ordered until now for whatever reason.

fwiw i have also been ordering from them intermittently for over 20 years and never had a problem. they don't tend to send status updates until shipping but they do respond to email. i also find "low stock level" a confusing category and i suspect it means out of stock at FE but possibly available to order.