Two music ventures backed by Peter Gabriel have done the sensible thing in an ever-crowded online music space and teamed up to share technology and make the most of the Gabriel association: ad-funded music player We7 is supplying tracks to music recommendation site The Filter for a online radio player on thefilter.com.

There are no plans for the radio service to be hosted on We7 at the moment. Both firms are venture backed by Gabriel’s Real World company and this latest deal is an extension of an existing relationship that gives We7 use of The Filter’s recommendation technology. So We7 has the tracks, The Filter has the tech and the sharing is now mutual.

Recommendation music sites aren’t anything new—Las.tfm has a large and growing UK audience and such sites have to contend with iTune’s Genius—but We7 says its stats have demonstrably gone up since it started using The Filter’s technology, which was developed by British tech firm Exabre. So with all this cooperation between We7 and The Filter, and their shared benefactors in the shape of Gabriel’s Real World Group, might one could gently suggest that a more formal merger would be the natural next step…