Murdoch and David recruited local musicians Stevie Jackson (guitar and vocals), Isobel Campbell (cello/vocals), Chris Geddes (keys) and Richard Colburn (drums), the latter of whom shared a flat with David and was a student on the Music Business course, to perform on the album, with Murdoch describing the process as a "product of botched capitalism".

[6] The warm response Tigermilk received led to the band being signed to Jeepster Records in August 1996, who released their second album If You're Feeling Sinister on 18 November.

[13] Despite the band's growing popularity, during this period they kept a low profile at the insistence of Murdoch, who was still regaining his strength following years struggling with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

The band played gigs sporadically, rarely gave interviews, and refused to appear in publicity photographs, often getting friends and acquaintances to pose instead.

[23][24] During the recording of the album, long-time studio trumpet-player Mick Cooke was asked to join the band as a full member.

The 2000 film High Fidelity mentions the band (with Jack Black's character referring to them as "old sad bastard music" and disdaining their soft style) and features a clip from the song "Seymour Stein" from The Boy with the Arab Strap.

[29] Two songs by the band ("Expectations" and "Piazza, New York Catcher") appeared on the soundtrack for the 2007 hit film Juno.

[30] Also, the title track from Arab Strap was played over the end credits of the UK television series Teachers,[31] and the lyric "Colour my life with the chaos of trouble" from the song was quoted by one of the characters in the 2009 film (500) Days of Summer.

Stuart David soon left the band to concentrate on his side project, Looper, and his book writing, which included his The Idle Thoughts of a Daydreamer.

The "Jonathan David" single, sung by Stevie Jackson, was released in June 2001 and was followed by "I'm Waking Up to Us" in November, which saw the band use an outside producer (Mike Hurst) for the first time.

[6] The album also marked the return of Murdoch as the group's primary songwriter, following the poorly received Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant and Storytelling, both of which were more collaborative than the band's early work.

[40] A documentary DVD, Fans Only, was released by Jeepster in October 2003, featuring promotional videos, live clips and unreleased footage.

In January 2005, B&S was voted Scotland's greatest band in a poll by The List, beating Simple Minds, Idlewild, Travis, Franz Ferdinand, and The Proclaimers, among others.

[42] In April 2005, members of the band visited Israel and the Palestinian territories with the UK charity War on Want;[43] the group subsequently recorded a song inspired by the trip titled "The Eighth Station of the Cross Kebab House", which would first appear on the digital-download version of the charity album Help!

Push Barman to Open Old Wounds, a compilation of the Jeepster singles and EPs, was released in May 2005 while the band were recording their seventh album in California.

[53] On 17 July 2010, the band performed their first UK gig in almost four years to a crowd of around 30,000 at Latitude Festival in Henham Park, Southwold.

The documentary featured interviews with every member that was present on the album, as well as several archival photos and videos from the band's early days.

[66] The Belle and Sebastian song "There's Too Much Love" forms much of the soundtrack for the Brazilian film The Way He Looks, about a blind, gay teenage boy and his friends, released in 2014.

[67] During the same year, the band appeared in the news for a comical story that occurred during their US tour, in which they accidentally forgot Colburn in a North Dakota Walmart.

[71] Unlike the previous two festivals, the Boaty Weekender was held on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea instead of UK holiday parks.