Secondhand Record Shop Near Me by Boat Quay: Lifted Trax

Lifted Trax is a secondhand record shop near Boat Quay at 25 Lorong Telok, #03-01, Singapore 049037, and it keeps short hours, so plan around them. Doors open at 12 pm from Wednesday to Sunday, and the shop stays shut on Monday and Tuesday. The store describes itself as serving DJs, diggers, collectors and listeners, and its stock is mostly used vinyl with a smaller run of selected new records, plus vinyl care accessories, incense and zines.

The unit number tells you most of what you need. #03-01 puts Lifted Trax on the third storey of a building on Lorong Telok, a narrow lane in the conservation shophouse grid that sits behind the Boat Quay riverfront. There is no street window full of sleeves to lure you in, so walk with the address open and look for the entrance rather than a shopfront display. Clarke Quay and Raffles Place MRT stations are both a short walk away.

Being upstairs changes the mood of the visit. The bars and lunch crowds of Circular Road stay down at street level, and the people who come up to the third storey are usually there to dig. That suits the shop's own description of its customers. Expect working DJs going through 12-inch singles, collectors with a wantlist, and curious listeners who want someone to point them toward a good ambient or jazz record.

The catalogue reads like a DJ's crate sorted by genre. House, techno and electro, tech house and minimal, trance and rave, jungle and drum and bass, UK bass and garage, disco and edits, broken beat and club jazz each get their own section, and most of that is 12-inch vinyl. If you came to Singapore hunting dance records from the 1990s, this is the shop to prioritise over general vintage stores.

The LP side leans toward Asia. There are separate sections for City Pop and Japanese LPs and for Asian rare groove and Southeast Asian records, alongside label sections for Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Korea. Jazz, soul and rare groove, ambient and new age, Afro and Latin, modern classical and folk records fill out the rest. The site also posts a monthly recommended list, and the September 2026 edition was live when we looked.

Prices are listed in Singapore dollars on every item page, and shipping is charged separately. A copy of Hako Yamasaki's 人間まがい on the F-Label imprint was priced at S$30, graded Near Mint for the vinyl and Very Good Plus for the sleeve, with its insert but no obi. It is a fair example of how the Japanese LP stock is described, with the missing obi flagged up front.

Goro Noguchi's Love In London on Polydor sat at S$20 with its obi and insert, but the grading was blunter: Good Plus for the vinyl and a note about some crackle and noise. At the top of the ladder, a repress of Jo's R-Type / Imagine The Future 12-inch on Awesome Records was listed at S$120 in the Rare and Hard To Find section, graded Very Good with some scuffs and surface noise in a generic sleeve.

Lifted Trax is upfront that photos on its site may not show the exact copy for sale, and it asks buyers to read the grading notes instead. Treat that as the most useful rule in the shop. A sleeve image might be a stock picture, while the text under it tells you whether the record has light wear, crackle, a missing obi or a generic outer sleeve.

According to its grading policy, every used record is professionally cleaned, given a new inner sleeve when needed, placed in a protective plastic outer sleeve and play-tested before it goes out for sale. Returns and refunds are generally not accepted. If a record turns out to be graded wrongly, the shop asks you to email contact@liftedtrax.com to talk it through, so keep the receipt and write while the problem is fresh.

The weekly schedule runs Wednesday and Thursday from 12 pm to 7 pm, Friday and Saturday from 12 pm to 8 pm, and Sunday from 12 pm to 6 pm. Monday and Tuesday are closed, which catches out visitors who arrive at the start of a week. Friday and Saturday give you the longest window, so they are the days to choose if you want time to listen through a full bin.

A Sunday trip works if you arrive early, since the shop closes at 6 pm. A sensible plan is to scroll the new arrivals pages for 12-inch singles and LPs the night before, note the titles that interest you, and then go through those bins first. Copies marked Sold out online will not be waiting in the room, so cross them off before you set out.

The buying page is specific about what Lifted Trax wants. On 12-inch singles it lists house, deep house, techno, minimal, tech house, Balearic, disco, boogie, UK garage, drum and bass, broken beat, street soul, reggae and hip hop. On LPs it wants jazz, ambient, new age, soul, reggae and Asian rare groove. Boxes of classic rock or pop albums are a weaker fit, so sell those elsewhere.

Singapore-based sellers with 60 records or fewer are asked to send a list of titles for review. For collections larger than 60, the shop says it will come to wherever the records are to look through them and give an appraisal, and photos with a rough note of genres or titles help. International sellers should prepare a complete list. All enquiries go to contact@liftedtrax.com.

Arriving on a Monday or Tuesday is the most common way to miss out. In that case the full catalogue is online, and the shop ships within Singapore and to most of Asia Pacific and North America, mainly with J&T Express, with orders usually going out in one to two days. It does not ship to Europe, so visitors from there should buy in person.

If you want a second stop with a completely different feel, Ronggeng Records runs a stall inside Tiong Bahru Market and focuses on Asian rarities and vintage audio gear. The two shops pair well for anyone chasing Southeast Asian pressings. One honest note: if your list is mostly new major-label pressings, neither shop is the right trip, because both are built around used and hard-to-find stock.

Once you have your bag, walk down Lorong Telok to Circular Road and on to the Boat Quay promenade, where the low shophouses face the Singapore River and the towers of Raffles Place. Head upriver along the water toward Elgin Bridge and Clarke Quay, or downriver past Cavenagh Bridge to the Asian Civilisations Museum on Empress Place.

On the way back, the riverside steps by Cavenagh Bridge are a calm place to look through what you bought before the walk home. Records bought in the afternoon heat are best kept flat and out of direct sun, and the shop's protective outer sleeves help with that on the short walk to the MRT.

Address: 25 Lorong Telok, #03-01, Singapore 049037, on the third storey near Boat Quay, a short walk from Clarke Quay and Raffles Place MRT stations. Hours: Wednesday and Thursday 12 pm to 7 pm, Friday and Saturday 12 pm to 8 pm, Sunday 12 pm to 6 pm, and closed Monday and Tuesday. Email: contact@liftedtrax.com. Instagram: @liftedtrax.

Stock is secondhand records with selected new titles, vinyl care accessories, incense and zines, all priced in Singapore dollars. Used records are cleaned, resleeved and play-tested, and returns are generally not accepted, so read each grading note before you pay. For selling, send a title list for 60 records or fewer, while larger collections can be appraised where they are stored.