Music Hunter for iPad, easily one of the slickest ways to discover new music

For every song you know there are thousands of great ones waiting in the wings. That’s why we love music discovery apps so much. Music Hunter for iPad is easily one of the slickest ones we’ve seen and should appeal to any music lover.

Music Hunter [App Store, $0.99] is a product of a collaboration between the popular indie music discovery site We Are Hunted and music app developer The Echo Nest, whose intelligent music platform we’ve written about before. Unlike their first collaboration, the likeable but limited appeal Pocket Hipster, Music Hunter is a music discovery app for the masses.

Instead of a focus on indie music, Music Hunter spans the breadth of musical tastes from progressive to hip-hop and beyond.

When you fire up the app you’re given the ability to choose a genre and theme of music. This allows you to specify selections like electronic music that’s good for dancing or really loud jazz.

Once you’ve made your selection you’re presented with a gorgeous sliding palette of track samples represented by their album covers. Then you’re free to tap around on the array to hear samples of the tracks. You can also choose to simply search for an artist and be presented with a selection of choices that are similar.

All of these options combine to make Music Hunter work like a ‘seek’ button that only plays music that you’ll like.

Along the bottom of the app you’re presented with buttons that allow you to favorite tracks, get more info about an artist, seamlessly purchase tracks from iTunes and share your discoveries via Twitter or Facebook.

There are a couple of items that I’d like to see added in the future, like the ability to suggest items based on my library or a continuously scrolling mode that I didn’t have to refresh manually for new selections. Additionally, support for external music listening apps like Rdio or Spotify would be a nice touch.

Regardless, Music Hunter has already joined the ranks of my go-to apps for music discovery. If you’re serious about keeping your musical selection fresh check it out and let us know what you think.