I’m a big fan of things like Last.FM, thesixtyone, and other services that can turn me to new music or help me get into (or out of) certain moods. Ghostly Discovery is a free application that allows me to get into the mood of things. Or at least tries to. On one hand it’s an application that I really want to love. On the other, it’s hard not to look past some obvious pitfalls.

Let’s take a look shall we?

Ghostly Discovery’s selling point is its Mood wheel that allows you to select specific colors on the spectrum. You then fine tune digital and BPM sliders that affect what kind of music you’re playing. It’s a simple concept that has the potential for awesome. The first time you open the app, you’ll be presented with a short series of instructions that explain what colors signify what mood. If you ever forget, you can press the information button in the lower left hand corner of the screen to access the tutorial again. Once you’ve made your selections, pressing the discovery button will send you on your way. Simple.

If “you’re in the mood,” Ghostly Discovery will assort a playlist that’s crafted just for you. The music player has all of your basic functions, such as pause, and forwards and backwards buttons. Oddly enough, I never saw a volume slider in the app, which is a shame. The music player itself is kind of awkward, because it tries to present a lot of information in a really tiny side panel that’s akin to something I’d see with a Winamp skin. If the text is too long, Ghostly Discovery will scroll the titles back and forth across the pane.

The other pane, the album pane, is also unintuitive to use. You’d think that tapping the album artwork would do something, but alas nothing happens. Instead, you have to tap the menu button that provides you with additional options. For example, you could purchase the track you’re listening to on iTunes. While that and the artist bio are fine, I think it’s weird that they decided to shove a preference in here (dimming). It just doesn’t fit in with the other options available.

You can go back and forth between the mood and stream screens via tiny back and forward buttons at the top right corner, which may not be friendly for those with chubby thumbs. It’s strange how the mood screen can have such a great design, but the stream screens and the app navigation is flaunted by a poor layout.

One last feature Ghostly Discovery sports is the ability to favorite tracks. If you create an account, you can star tracks as you listen to them. I never used the feature, but it’s available to those who wish to create playlists of their favorite tunes.

But tunes might be the problem with this app. While I highly respect the artists that put their heart and soul into their creations, I couldn’t find anything I really liked with the exception of the Mobius Band. I got tired of the same bands playing over and over again (since Ghostly Discovery only plays music from their catalogues), and to be honest, while the mood selector did work, the bands are all so similar that it really doesn’t matter. If you apply this concept to a bigger service, I think it’d be great, if only to get some more variety.

Ghostly Discovery is a specific service for those often perusing ghostly.com. However, only the cataloged artists are available, and with such a small collection, the music can get old pretty quick. This app was suggested to be based on the great looking UI (on the surface), and while I really like what it has to offer, I can’t say I’ll be sticking with it too much longer. Those looking to discover new bands may want to give this app a shot, if only to see if there’s anything in the catalogues worth picking up for a weekend drive.

You can check out this application at Ghostly’s Discovery page.