Nia Bowers
Peter Kleinhans stands at the center of an unusually wide-ranging Venn diagram. He has called harness races at The Meadowlands, trained trotter horses, and co-owned three racetracks. He studied creative writing and philosophy at Carnegie Mellon and English literature at NYU before attending Michigan Law, ultimately deciding the profession was not for him. He also helped run the Manhattan real estate business his grandmother built and now raises livestock on a small farm in Flemington, New Jersey, where Enough Talk, the champion trotter who took him to Sweden, spent his final years. Through it all, whether equestrian or not, the constant is that he has been writing songs.
His new album, “Selections,” brings together eight tracks recorded between 2018 and 2025. Rather than a greatest-hits collection, it presents a carefully curated set of songs that explore themes of technological anxiety, modern desire, and the struggle to remain human as algorithms are designed to make us more predictable.
“Dopamine” traces the compulsive cycle of chasing small digital rewards, the pull of endless feeds, and the fleeting satisfaction they deliver. “FOMO” sits with the unease of measuring your own life against the curated versions others put online.
Elsewhere, the focus shifts to institutions and the systems that sustain them. Kleinhans examines free speech through the Larry Flynt-Jerry Falwell clash, touches on monetary policy with wry wit, and revisits a largely overlooked colonial resistance in Madagascar, all while capturing the modern sense that something fundamental has shifted beneath the surface of everyday life. It is becoming increasingly difficult to muster the attention for it.
There is also space for more intimate conflict. “Waltz into Darkness” follows someone choosing chaos over safety, drawn toward something they know will hurt them. It serves as a reminder that the forces we struggle against are not always external.
The artist delivers these songs with a warm, distinctive yet familiar voice that has drawn comparisons to Dave Matthews. His sound moves fluidly between pop and folk rock. On certain tracks, the guitar work leans into jazz fusion, with extended chords and bass lines that stretch beyond standard rock patterns. The drums also play a strong role in holding the groove, particularly in songs like “FOMO” and “Perv With the Nerve,” where these diverse influences come together in ways that highlight Kleinhans’s taste and idiosyncrasy.
As “Selections” unfolds, it reveals Peter Kleinhans as a deeply attentive observer. His perspective moves from horses to markets to music and ultimately to the unease of watching a culture shift as the world becomes just a little too different, too fast.