TheFilter, a UK-based music recommendation startup that I profiled in last August is entering its private beta phase. On its landing page, they now have a new logo, and three demo Flash slides appeared show that it is not only served as a music tracking engine, but rather a startup dedicated to recommend good musics, movies, videos, Web videos for their users.

“We’ve all sat there at the computer with muscle fatigue in our thumbs and faced with so much information without focus,” said Peter Gabriel, an investor and partner in TheFilter. “Getting the good stuff without the grief, that is the dream. And I’m not talking just about music, I mean everything. Not just a disc jockey, but a life jockey.”

As reported by Los Angeles Times, TheFilter is slated to be launched in May to the public. I’ll write another review on its public version by then. Stay tuned.

An U.K. based music recommendation startup The Filter has raised $5 million in a round of funding, according to The Independent. This $5 million investment was led by Peter Gabriel, the former Genesis frontman alongside with venture capitalist Eden Ventures, and follows an initial $1.8 million round of investment by the two parties and The Filter’s two founding members Rhett Ryder and Martin Hopkins. Since its first inception in 2004, it has grew steadily and now has identified more than 5 million songs and 150,000 users around the globe. The Filter, first acted as a tool for the founder to manage his own online music collection, has expanded into a free download software that could be worked on Windows, Mac and Nokia mobile phone. An user can use this software to create her own favorite playlists, discover new music as well as refresh her favorite playlists on her iTunes, iPod or any other portable music player. It worked in a similar manner such as iLike and Last.FM, another British music recommendation site.

The Filter was developed by Exabre, a Bath-based firm. They will use this new funding to expand their services into areas such as digital video and film content.