[1] After spending time in Africa, England, Spain, and Australia, Stephen Kent settled in San Francisco in the early 1990s after finishing a European tour with his band Lights in a Fat City.
[3] Produced by Alex Stahl and Oliver di Cicco, the album was released in 1993 featuring special guests Will Bernard on guitar, Eda Maxym on vocals, Dan Reiter on cello, and Jai Uttal on dotar and kartals.
Billboard magazine published a critic's choice review of Meanwhile in November 1994, calling the album a "seductive world-fusion journey", with the band joining "the ranks of Jon Hassell, Steve Roach, and Robert Rich in exploring a primary, techno-tribal music".
Produced by Simon Tassano, the album has, notes music critic Bryan Reesman, "an equally dense and spacious feel, creating a clear mix".
[7] Writer Sam Prestianni observes that the album's "digital aura remarkably marries the indigenous instrumentation with a rare naturalness" and that it "resonates with the full flame of world-derived trance power".
On May 30, 1998, Trance Mission played the Benefit Concert for the Refugee Children of Tibet at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts along with Silvia Nakkach and Nina Hagen.
[17] Another version of Trance Mission performed at the Starwood Festival in 2006, featuring Stephen Kent, Peter Valsamis, Geoffrey Gordon, Eda Maxym and cellist Rufus Cappadocia.