While most of Tokyo is frantically trying to cool down, Japan's prime dub outfit Little Tempo will be heating things up this summer with a series of live gigs.

In the early 1990s, founding members of fledgling group Silent Poets split away to form the dub-tropical outfit Little Tempo, led by the charismatic Tico, complete with eye-patch -- pirate style. While the Poets went on to achieve a solid reputation in Britain for their introspective, abstract hip-hop musings, their offspring, Little Tempo, cemented their standing in today's Japanese reggae scene, vying with Dry and Heavy for the dub crown. But the all-important seal of approval from the United Kingdom still eluded them.

That is about to be rectified, if the positive reactions at recent U.K. shows are any barometer. Keeping up the momentum of 1999's "Ron Riddim" and 2001's "Kedaco Sounds," the year that saw their breakthrough in Japan with appearances at Fuji Rock and Rising Sun, their recently released fifth album, "Brain Food," should take them to the next level in Japan.