Track Of The Day: Paul Draper - 'Feeling My Heart Run Slow'

You know that you must be doing something right when one of your songs ends up as RW/FF's Track Of The Day not once but twice. Former Mansun frontman and creative force Paul Draper has been notably absent from the music scene ever since Mansun's demise over 12 years ago, and is finally releasing some long-awaited new material. An initial demo version of 'Feeling My Heart Run Slow' was debuted at a Mansun fan convention nearly two years ago now, and featured as Track Of The Day shortly afterwards. Now fully shaped as a studio recording, the song acts as the lead track from 'EP One', which is available now on the K-Scope label.

Shortly after the demise of Mansun, Draper began recording a solo album, which was scrapped due to his disillusion with the music business. "I felt at the time that a lot of people had taken advantage of my trusting nature and also the fact I find it difficult to see the bad in people and keep walking into disasters" said Paul, "I didn't want to walk into another disaster so I gave up on making my own records to some people's delight, and cancelled my recording contract with EMI which I know seems insane but it makes sense to me...". After years away from the public eye, Paul played with Leeds band Menace Beach on a session recorded for Marc Riley's BBC Radio 6 Music show and was surprised to find that the show had received a deluge of emails from Mansun fans wishing for his return to music. And now the tentatively titled 'Spooky Action' album is due for release later in 2016.

Until then, 'EP One' features three brand new tracks that each show a different side to this hugely gifted songwriter: with the lead track described as "a thundering juggernaut of a revenge rock n roll song". As well as a remix of the song by Andy MacFarlane of Scottish band The Twilight Sad, the EP also includes 'No Ideas', which features four times Grammy nominated multi-instrumentalist solo artist Steven Wilson, and 'The Silence is Deafening', which was co-written with Catherine AD (aka The Anchoress) whose rather fine album 'Confessions Of A Romance Novelist' was co-produced and co-written by Paul.

RW/FF spoke to Paul a few years back in an interview that you can read HERE.