In his ambitious new album A.fter I.ntelligence, Macro/micro plunges into the philosophical deep end, wrestling with "the deeper questions like The Alignment Problem, The Hard Problem of Consciousness and thought experiments like the Paperclip Maximizer that will haunt us for years to come". Tommy Simpson, Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist behind the project, folds IDM and experimental textures into what feels like a probe into how and why we experience at all—and what it means when artificial intelligence might think differently. Guest spots from Benjamin Jared Miller (HEALTH) and Veronika Coassolo (Tricky), plus mastering by ambient maestro Rafael Anton Irisarri, add more colors to the palette.

The album’s cover (we don't know if it was made with the help of AI or not) reimagines Ilya Repin’s Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, replacing the Tsar with a menacing, almost otherworldly figure—robotic, alien, a stand-in for artificial intelligence. The son, now a bloodied figure in white, evokes humanity: fragile, vulnerable, and caught in the hands of a force beyond comprehension. In the context of A.fter I.ntelligence, the image mirrors the album’s exploration of consciousness, AI, and existential risk—painting a sonic world where the questions of control, morality, and survival are as intimate as they are cosmic.