Following the release of Snowbug, the Llamas jumped ship from V2 to Duophonic Super 45s (who handled distribution in the UK and Europe) and Drag City (who handled US distribution) for their first album of the new millenium: 2000’s Buzzle Bee.

O’Hagan hasn’t explained in-depth why the band and V2 parted ways aside from a desire to remain innovative, though he stated in a 2011 interview that “there were some great people there but in the end the ones that counted did not understand where we came from. I have no idea whether V2 regretted losing us. I think they barely gave it any thought. Unfortunately these companies are run by people that are doing jobs and might not take their passion home with them.”

Going independent was something of a mixed blessing; O’Hagan recalls in an interview that Buzzle Bee was “produced in 14 days and we had a very limited budget. We had to work within tight constraints. We went from a position where V2 let us record to beyond our expectations to a position where we asked ourselves to express the music economically” but also presented “a huge opportunity for us to rethink and edit”. 

The album was co-produced by the band and Fulton Dingley, who previously worked with the band on Cold and Bouncy as well as Snowbug, and returned to engineer the sessions for Buzzle Bee at London’s Blackwing Studios, where the band recorded much of Cold And Bouncy. Despite the limited time in the studio, the sessions were replete with experimentation; the track Sleeping Spray utilizes extensive tape editing in the vein of Teo Macero’s work during Miles Davis’ electric period.

Buzzle Bee was released in October 2000 on Duophonic and Drag City on vinyl and CD, though the vinyl release from Duophonic was limited to 1000 copies, making it a sought-after collector’s item. Several years following the album’s release, O’Hagan spoke of the album in unfavorable terms, calling it a ““the outing that need not have happened” according to one source, though in a 2011 interview, he reversed course and stated he loved the album, calling it “a perfect departure from the wide soundscape” of it’s predecessors.