Low getting stopped in the border in their "Canada" clip.

The Low Movie (How to Quit Smoking) is part of this year's running of the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, and the band is coming back to town to celebrate its release here. The event caps what is fixing to be a banner year for Low, following the recent release of their latest studio album, masterful The Invisible Way.

The 70-minute film, directed by accomplished music video creator Phil Harder (Jayhawks, Prince, Foo Fighters, etc.), traces the Duluth-based band's 20-year career and follows his work on several Low videos -- including 1994's "Words," 1995's "Shame," 1996's "Over the Ocean," 2002's "Canada," and 2005's "Monkey." The movie -- which appears to be an excellent companion to 2008's You May Need a Murderer -- incorporates all of Harder's 16mm negatives, and features many outtakes never seen anywhere.

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Courtesy of RGC

It's easy to forget sometimes that, at heart, Alan Sparhawk is just your typical Duluthian. Call him during the winter, and there's bound to be a story involved: it could be something as mundane as, you know, cooking lentils under the hood of your car, or in Sparhawk's case, it could be that he just had to dig the umpteenth person out of the ditch in his front yard.

"It's actually been cold, which is refreshing," the Retribution Gospel Choir front man enthuses with his distinct, deep rasp of a voice. "I don't feel like you can really brag about being alive unless last winter had some bad, really cold days."

Of course, there's nothing particularly typical about Sparhawk's latest project with RGC. Their new full-length, simply titled 3, consists of a mere two songs, each one clocking in at around 20 minutes in length--one a snarling, swirling riff called "Can't Walk Out;" the other a mesmerizing dirge called "Seven."

Those two songs were fleshed out during a month-long residency at the Turf Club last summer, and this weekend RGC will return to the Midway to unveil 3. Gimme Noise caught up with Sparhawk to find out more about the record and his penchant for long songs.

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Photo by Hugh McCabe

Does this look like it's going to be a quiet album?

There's no sense in trying to slow down Alan Sparhawk. Not content to just let the artful majesty of a Jeff Tweedy-produced Low album be the focal point of early 2013, the third full-length Retribution Gospel Choir album is on the way.

The album, titled 3, comes on the heels of this year's The Revolution EP, and judging by what we know about the collection thus far, this could be Sparhawk, bassist Steve Garrington, and drummer/man-about-town Eric "Actual Wolf" Pollard turning the outfit into a wild wonderland of noise and experimentation. And speaking of Wilco collaborations, guitarist Nels Cline is in on the fun too.

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