But down here, in the subterranean environs of Jam Jam Club, the intensity of 1960s soul is harnessed in incendiary style by Kitaaki and the rest of the four-member Nude Restaurant team: Izumi Sawamoto, Shuhei Yoshioka and Seiji Iwabuchi.

Nurtured in casinos and ballrooms in dead-end working-class towns across the northern UK in the 1970s, northern soul – a culture in which fanatics dance to rare and up-tempo American soul from the 1960s – has experienced a robust revival in recent years. In the UK, soul weekenders and regular events across the country are, to use one of the scene’s most beloved slogans, keeping the faith.

Elsewhere, soul-focused nights with an emphasis on driving, dancer-friendly sounds are being held in cities from Melbourne to Madrid. And it is testament to the once parochial movement’s global reach that one of the world’s most febrile northern scenes has been simmering for over 20 years here in the Kansai region of Honshu, Japan’s largest island.

I arrived in Kobe acting on a tip from Scottish writer Stuart Cosgrove’s book Young Soul Rebels – a personal account of his years as a regular at storied northern venues such as Wigan Casino, Blackpool Mecca and The Golden Torch in Stoke-on-Trent. In the book, Cosgrove singles out Nude Restaurant as a shining example of how northern soul continues to electrify dancers and foment new communities in even the farthest corners of the planet.

And it swiftly becomes obvious that the Kansai crew has created something rather special. As the four event founders alternate behind the decks, the heat inside the club quickly builds. Northern favourites such as Luther Ingram’s impassioned If It’s All the Same to You Babe and the joyous Gonna Be a Big Thing by The Yum Yums provide the soundtrack as the scene’s star dancers unveil their repertoire of spins, kicks and drops.