Driftwood Conversation
Kate Cline (RSI): The Physics of Sound, the Alchemy of Healing
Some episodes feel like a frequency; they don't just land in the ears; they settle somewhere deeper. My latest Driftwood Conversation is one of those moments that stand out.
This week, I spoke with Kate Cline, who creates under the name RSI (Arressai). She's a sound artist, producer, and sound meditation specialist working at the intersection of physics, emotion, and art. Her tools include a modular synthesizer—a customizable analog instrument where no two setups are alike. The sounds she creates are not pre-programmed. They're patched in real time, improvisational and hypnotic, never to be repeated.
What Kate calls a sound meditation goes far beyond what we typically imagine in yoga studios or spa settings. It's part storytelling, part science, and part spiritual journey, structured using the hero's journey as a guiding arc. She describes her role as "scoring a film for your subconscious mind to fill in the blanks."
In our conversation, we talked about:
How sound helped her process unspoken trauma
The difference between sound art and sound healing
Her immersive art installations in Berlin and Joshua Tree
Her upcoming tour, live streams, and why community matters more than commercial success
A Few Notes:
Modular synthesizer (Euro Rack): A hands-on, analog instrument built from individual sound components, or "modules." Artists connect them manually with patch cables to generate tones and rhythms.
Theta brainwave state: A deep meditative state associated with intuition, healing, and dreamlike experiences, often reached during sound meditation.
Sound meditation vs. sound bath: Kate makes a distinction here. While sound baths can be passive and aesthetically pleasing, her meditations are structured and intentional, often guiding listeners through emotional landscapes and fostering internal reflection.
Kate's work is both personal and profoundly universal. Whether she's manipulating light sculptures with sonic triggers or guiding a room through waves of sound, she's inviting people back into their bodies, into presence, into feeling.
I hope you'll take a moment to listen to this episode and absorb it slowly. Like the best art, it doesn't rush. It reverberates.
Listen now on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify! New episodes every Wednesday morning!
With warmth,
Hilary
Kate’s Website is: https://www.arressai.com/
https://www.instagram.com/arressai/
