Twitter is a great way of discovering great examples of the sorts of stuff you’re into, not least music.

When you tweet about a certain topic, you will often find yourself being followed by someone who has searched for that same topic.  The downside to that is the huge amount of spam on the go in Twitterland (just tweet words like “iPad” and see what happens), but sometimes there are gems.  If I tweet about the music I like listening to, I get the occasional follow from bands who presumably find me on the back of search terms like “post-rock”.  One such band was MinionTV, who I blogged about some time ago, and whose magnificent music I was thrilled to discover.

Then, a a few weeks ago, I was followed by the Echelon Effect (Twitter | website | Bandcamp), so out of curiosity I listened to a bit and was instantly hooked.  The Echelon Effect, a one-man outfit from England, produces electronic post-rock soundscapes and have a haunting and ethereal yet quietly energetic feel.  With soft, gentle rhythms, beautifully subtle melodies, echoey samples and an aura evocative of film scores, the music is engaging but because of its subtlety I have found it is firmly joining the likes of Boards of Canada, Ulrich Schnauss and Lindstrom as great music to write to.

Like many relatively little-known musicians these days, much of the Echelon Effect’s discography is available free online, though of course you have the option to pay what you like (and the more you pay, the more able they are to spend time making music).

I can highly recommend taking a peek at it, and although I am not sure I have a clear favourite yet the first track of Seasons Part 1, Recalling Winter’s Casualities (right), is proving to be a real grower and the album Mosaic is a particularly consistent one.

Overall, the music is not demanding or in your face (though I don’t wish to imply it’s in anyway simple or shallow), and the way that the tracks blur into each other to create wide, sweeping sounds that provide a magnificent soundtrack to a day.