GAVIN FRIDAY - ECCE HOMO

Gavin Friday, or rather Fionán Martin Hanvey, holds a special place in my personal music world. Not that he’s somewhere on some top spot, but very close to where Marc Almond, for example, is. It's such a place for artists experienced by life, badly battered by it, eccentrics, misfits, complacent hedonists with the baggage of life's mistakes and not the best relations with the world around us. And although we may differ in some areas in our views, due to, for example, different personality construction, sexual orientation, different conditions of growing up, upbringing, learning, different values, different social backgrounds, etc., I appreciate them immensely. I appreciate this extraordinary sensitivity, exemplary sense of observation and the ability to translate pain and anger into music, this special kind of emotional exhibitionism that gives them the strength to “bleed” in public in a kind of catharsis. It triggers in me a special kind of fascination and connection, which can perhaps best be summed up in a slight paraphrase of Evelyn Beatrice Hall's words - “I may not agree with everything you say, nor do I quite know what you're talking about, because my experience is different, but I'll give my life so that you always have the right to speak it.” Unfortunately, with some maddening stubbornness, we humans are increasingly unwilling to accept the fact that we are different from each other, and we can derive a lot of positive things from these differences. And again, paraphrasing a bit, this time from Norwid (one of the four most important Polish Romantic poets), we know less and less how to love each other, we prefer to argue more and more, we don't know how to differ “beautifully and strongly.” Instead, we judge each other, stick idiotic patches on each other and push each other into ever more radical ghettos. It doesn't matter which side they're on, common sense is lost bludgeoned in solidarity by the left and right blunt bludgeons of divisive propaganda. There is perhaps no belief more false than “we” are right and “they” are lying. The truth always lies where it lies. Sometimes on this side, sometimes on that side, and sometimes in the middle. However, no one seems to care about it today. Besides, truth is always the first casualty of war. A war that is already going on around us in full swing, only taking different forms on different levels and fields.

In an interview, Friday laments - "The quarrels, confrontations are getting fiercer, there is no middle ground anymore. There should always be left and right, of course, but close to the center. And now the extremes are growing. Just before the pandemic there was a wave of cancel culture - and then I got scared. [...] The world is angry and confused. All this is accumulating. And on top of that, smartphones, social media. Propaganda has become like under Goebbels. […] My conclusion is this - people need to talk. Talk to each other, not to Facebook or Instagram."

And that's what the album is about, at least half of it. “Ecce Homo” addresses global political issues, expressing Friday's frustration with the rise of authoritarian leaders and social injustice. The other half is Gavin's reminiscences and personal reflections on his past, recalling his childhood years and paying tribute to friends and deceased loved ones. Overall, “Ecce Homo” is, for me, a work about watching the world crumble into a gangrene of hatred, manipulation, hypocrisy, consumerism and general environmental destruction. While I fully agree with this depressing picture, that shadow of hope that Gavin leaves, that there is still time to put it all right, that humanity can still afford dialogue, acts of kindness and reconciliation of sorts, is in my opinion just wishful thinking. But this is just my sad reflection, which at no time is meant to take away from the artist's vision. A vision that resulted in a deeply personal and politically charged work, shaped by more than a decade of creative evolution and life experiences. The title, “Ecce Homo,” comes from the Gospel according to St. John (19:5) and refers to the moment when Pontius Pilate presents the battered Jesus to the crowd before his crucifixion. The gesture symbolizes both Christ's innocence and Pilate's last hope that the image of the suffering man would inspire pity in the crowd. None of this. As humanity, we really have to come to the very end by committing acts of horror, and this will still teach us nothing. Someone will die, someone will wash his hands, someone is just obeying orders. Today the phrase “behold the man” goes beyond its genesis, it can be read more universally as a general symbol of human weaknesses. And it raises a rather provocative question about the meaning of sacrifice, suffering, endurance, steadfastness in an increasingly divided and immoral world. This image is used by Gavin Friday to spin his tale of the complexity of human experience, the exploration of identity, the meaning of suffering and redemption. And he does so with great accuracy in his poignant lyrics.

But it's time to come down to earth and deal with the musical matter, for which the lion's share of the responsibility lies with Dave Ball, the man who made himself known to the world in the early 1980s as “the one with the mustache” from Soft Cell. The beginning of Ball and Friday's collaboration was in the days of Virgin Prunes, Gavin's parent band. Dave Ball was the producer of the group's second and last album, 1986's „The Moon Looked Down and Laughed”. Since then, they have supported each other with guest appearances on their solo releases, among other things. On the other hand, the point at which work began exclusively on Ecce Homo dates back nearly 18 years, when Ball invited Friday to participate in the occasional (Alan Vega's 70th birthday) recording of a cover of “Ghostrider” by the cult duo Suicide. The song was included on the fourth album of a series of CD EP’s/promos “Alan Vega 70th” released by Blast First Petite. Thus began an email exchange of song ideas, interspersed with shorter or longer studio sessions, which resulted in most of the material for the album with a huge contribution from Ricardo Mulhall, who should not be forgotten. Over the next few years, Friday cared for his ailing mother, who was in the final stages of Alzheimer's disease, worked in U2's creative department (he and Bono share a childhood friendship) and wrote lyrics filled with confessions as beautiful as they were brutal. What followed was a two-year hibernation of the project, caused by Covid, the death of his mother, close collaborator Hal Willner, longtime friend Sinéad O'Connor, and the passing beyond the rainbow bridge of one of his beloved dachshunds, Ralf (as an aside - the song “The Best Boys in Dublin” is a tribute to Ralf and Stan, two „doggy” brothers whose unconditional love, devotion and affection helped Gavin get through difficult times). When the men got to work again, they decided to air out the somewhat overwhelming, dense and “stuffy” arrangements of Dave Ball, or rather “two” Dave's - the one from Soft Cell and the one from The Grid 😊. They handled this with a significant input from Michael Heffernan, with whom they caught up and wove orchestral arrangements and operatic voices into electronic and industrial grooves, achieving a lush, expansive sound. At times, it approaches the depth and power of a soundtrack from a psychological, cinematic drama. This succeeded in creating a strikingly engaging structure: almost industrial electronics permeate the album's opening tracks before gradually giving way to softer, more reflective passages. These shifts offer both a breather after the full-throttle openers and add variety and color to the album's musical palette. Moving in space from melodeclamation to an almost theatrical “haunted” manner, Friday's vocals blend perfectly with the other elements.

The album's opening track, “Lovesubzero,” begins with the dark, aching tone of a clarinet in a somewhat oriental chant and piano chords, at which Friday begins a story dedicated to his current partner Patrick, the person who helped Gavin discover himself. However, in its unfolding, this beautifully constructed ballad very quickly gives way to a classic, dance-floor “four-to-the-floor” with deep melodeclamation in a manner à la Dieter Meier of Yello. And this is not the only association with the Swiss duo's productions. A distinctive dance beat takes over the narrative and, accompanied by orchestral and vocal interludes, drags us through the rest of this excellent track. An excellent “opener.”

“Ecce Homo” is a specific dark death goth disco or something like that... Again with Meier-style melodeclamations in the stanzas. In the choruses, on the other hand, Gavin gives it his all and more, and Miriam Blennerhassett's dramatic soprano motifs give them an incredibly powerful feel. “This track is my personal kick in the head and a kiss on the cheek to a world that has gone very wrong,” - says Friday. In fact, it captures the full spectrum of emotions, unleashing both anger and outrage, as well as tenderness and hope. It's a thing about power, corruption, and manipulation, combining at times virulent social criticism with religious symbolism awash in moral hypocrisy and manipulation of faith for control. Greed, hatred and violence - this is the whole destructive cycle of war exposed by Friday, as much as the facade of spirituality, or the “commodification” of salvation based on the “sale” of redemption. A very evocative video was created for this song, which is worth mentioning at this point - generated by artificial intelligence, edited and produced by studio284 and Petros Tryfon. The moving visuals contained in it depict strongly apocalyptic scenarios.

“The Church of Love,” one of the album's most interesting tracks, is also set firmly in a danceable atmosphere, this time at a medium tempo with slightly funky figures. The lyrics deal with the heavily complicated relationship with the Catholic Church in Ireland. Not with his own spirituality, his lack of faith, because that one Friday expresses quite clearly in the line “we pray in our own way,” but with the institution. Like other Irish people, he is fighting his battle against what was once a closely guarded secret of Catholic Ireland - the sexual abuse of children, the cover-up of crimes, collusion with the state, the abuse of power, the enrichment of church dignitaries while the population remains poor. The whole problem and its scale is very well shown by Derek Scally in his book “The Best Catholics Under the Sun. The Farewell of the Irish to the Church.”

The pace slows down even more in “Stations Of The Cross,” a song dedicated to Sinead O'Connor and originally planned to be sung with her as a duet. The artist's death thwarted those plans. This song is already an almost literal desire to hold the church accountable for its crimes. However, it is not a furious, mindless attack, but a desire for reparations, not material, but moral. It's a continued struggle with trauma, but also an awareness of the stigma of Irish identity. “All those Catholic images are in my DNA,” - says Friday - “If you walked into any room in my house, you'd think I was probably a priest. When I use references to religious iconography, I don't do it disrespectfully. But a 30-year-old person in Ireland today would not understand what we are talking about, what happened in the 1960s and 1970s and God knows what happened in the 1950s. We lived in a dictatorship, there's no denying it.”

Another track, “Lady Esquire,” features a glam rock rhythm taken alive from Garry Glitter (a disgusting type by the way). Not coincidentally, because it's memories just from the early 70s, the first teenage experiences with drugs (glue or shoe polish of those years provided a multitude of sensations), escape from parental control, transgression. Musically an alloy of Iggy Pop, David Bowie, or the aforementioned Glitter, woven into an entourage straight out of Soft Cell. What a combination...

“When The World Was Young” is a melancholy, nostalgic reminiscence of the time when teenage friends Fionán Hanvey (Gavin Friday), Derek Rowen (Guggi) and Paul Hewson (Bono) were running around Cedarwood, a suburban street, playing with a street gang they called Lypton Village... A look back at their youth, at everything an adult can no longer comprehend. A fantastic composition that gains more and more momentum - to the increasingly poignant vocals hooking at times to Bowie's mannerisms, other sections - strings and brass - are gradually added. Everything gains momentum and thickens into a crescendo in the arrangement. It even seems that at the end it must explode in some incredibly emotional outburst, but the piece “lets go” and slowly resolves itself into a melodramatic silence.

“The Best Boys In Dublin” is a short, mostly string-based construction that pays tribute to two ‘best boys in Dublin’ - dachshund brothers Ralf and Stan. One of the shortest and most organic songs on the album. It stands out in the same way as Queen's “Delilah” on “Innuendo” (Freddie Mercury's tribute to his beloved cat). Both of these songs speak directly to our need to seek comfort in difficult times and find the strength to survive, wherever we are. And the support of our furry companions is invaluable. The loss of Ralph was a great loss to both Gavin and Stan.

The album has two endings. Depending on the version, of course. As someone who grew up with vinyl records—typically limited to forty or so minutes of essential music—I often find the bonus tracks crammed onto CDs unnecessary. They tend to dilute the intensity of the original message and turn the album into an indigestible behemoth. However, in the case of Ecce Homo, the 'encore' included on the CD feels like a natural continuation and adds genuine value to the album.

The vinyl version ends with “Lamento.” Let's give the artist the floor for a moment - “This track is a tribute to my mother. [Mourning is complicated. The heart will break, maybe it will break, but it will still beat. It doesn't go away. Dave Ball sent me a melody - a simple one, based on basic chords - but it moved me a lot. Ralf passed away two days after Sinéad, which was very painful. [The whole country was devastated by her death. I remember when RTÉ started playing her music, and I went out with the dogs. You could hear Sinéad from every house...” Yes... Gavin Friday is extremely convincing in this piece. A beautifully orchestrated, poignant piece. A delicate ballad based on piano and space of other acoustic instruments. An emotional, sombre tale of endless love and grief.

The CD version, through a two-minute orchestral reprise of “When The World Was Young,” takes us gently on a continuation, repeating an anthem about the imperceptible passage of time. The incredibly catchy “Cabarotica,” with a title that is a combination of the words “cabaret” and “erotica,” demonstrates the sensual and performative nature of the artist, embodying, as it were, Friday's penchant for blending the sacred and profane. During live performances of “Cabarotica,” Friday transforms into a volcano of energy, demonstrating his ability to captivate audiences with his expressive presentation and stage presence. Gavin of Virgin Prunes at his best. Can there be a better and more seamless combination of disco, pop, dance, personal narrative and theatrical performance?

“Amaranthus (Love Lies Bleeding)” is true synth disco. It's another song dedicated to the mother. “The title comes from the plants she grew,” - Friday says. - “Mom was probably my first big fan and support. She was the seamstress of the band The Virgin Prunes, sewing our clothes for the stage.” The song ends with her voice as she can be heard wishing - “Happy birthday Fionán.”

The slightly rough, heavily textured electro of “Daze” is a track in which Friday grapples with the psychological effects of modern social conflicts. “Daze” is Soft Cell and Yello in one, uninhibited, danceable pop, lyrically ‘prancing’ through places filled with historical statues, chiefs, kings, generals, asking questions about the meaning of all these brawls, battles, battles, wars and similar crap.

And another finale - “Behold The Man,” a short, less than forty-second track that ends the CD version of the album, effectively completing the whole concept of the album with the title phrase proclaimed in the lyrics. Well, and what more can be added here? Nothing. Simply nothing. Gavin Friday is in more than excellent form. Current events fire him up like never before, and after the more tranquil and reflective “Catholic” album, “Ecce Homo” buzzes and pulses with the charm of nightclub glamour, known for example from Soft Cell's “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret” or Yello's “Stella.”

All in all, the result of Friday, Ball and Heffernan's collaboration is by far Gavin's best album to date and perhaps his most authentic. An album that is so sprawling that it takes a minimum of several listens to finally get into it deeply and let yourself be swept away by it completely, from start to finish. A somewhat challenging album, an album for those who are not afraid of the challenges of the complex topics on it, an album that may not be easy, but is worth every effort put into exploring it. And although, as I mentioned somewhere at the beginning of this text, we may perceive the business of this world differently, still savoring the sounds of “Ecce Homo” I am already waiting eagerly for the next album. As Norwid said, 'great is the damage to lose a nobly different friend'—and that is how I see this uncommon Irish artist.

Evaluation? Why, if you don’t have this album in your collection yet, I trust that’s only a temporary situation. Otherwise, no rating, no amount of stars given, will mean anything to you.

Robert Marciniak

21.05.2025

Writing the text, I used interviews given by Gavin Friday to Peek A Boo, Louder Than War and RTÉ Radio.