Graziano Lella (bass, soprano sax), Carmine Brunetto (drums), Roberto Salera (guitar) and Roberto Fega (sampler) form the instrumental art-rock band Dura Figura in 1997.

Since the beginning the Dura Figura develope a peculiar language far from schemas, classifications or catalogations, in search of a separation from rock music's “elementary structures” in favour of a free and personal construction. Even if nearly always structured, the group’s compositions are conceived in a way for leaving a wide space for improvisation and are, in most cases, constituted of block structures, that can be consequential, interchangeable, interrupted or superimposed. The plots of support often present sharp and unexpected changes in order to cause a kind of “off balance” and to avoid predictable events.

One of the main aspect of Dura Figura’s music is the nearly total absence of the main characteristics of traditional rock and pop vocabulary that are the blues, the instrumental solos and the linear rhythmic section, the harmonic progressions, the regular metrics, the voice on foreground. Nevertheless Dura Figura's music maintaines a strong amount of energy, impact and the "pivot" of all rock music: the riff.

The group moves across the absolute freedom concerning the pieces formal structures, in which the single sequences can be in a relationship between them and so juxtaposed (instead of integrated) or countered. In this case one sequence can deny the previous or the following one; the rhythmic sections were always articulated, fragmented and irregular. The sampler is conceived like a multifunctional instrument and used like rhythmic element, sequencer, generator of continuous/rarefied sounds, soloist instrument, presence in the background or guideline. Source materials for sampling aren't taken from “real instruments” voices but ripped from vynils and cds.

In june 1998 the band plays at the "da Peter Brook al cyberspazio" festival (Teatro Vascello – Rome) where take part other artists such as Peter Brook (with Oh les beaux jours by S. Beckett), Giancarlo Nanni and Manuela Kustermann and Ossatura.


Main concerts and festivals:
da Peter Brook al cyberspazio - Teatro Vascello - Roma - june 1998
Garbatella Festa per la Cultura - Roma - june 1998
Link - Bologna - march 1998
Mente Locale - Palestrina (Rm) - december 1997
Garbatella Festa per la Cultura - Roma - june 1997
Casale Garibaldi - Roma - february 1997
Brancaleone - Roma - february 1997