my next breakage is due to Debian Jessie having fresher and pickier version of make:

hajma@chrastavec:~/android/system-ics$ brunch urushi
including vendor/cm/vendorsetup.sh
Looking for dependencies

============================================
PLATFORM_VERSION_CODENAME=REL
PLATFORM_VERSION=4.0.4
TARGET_PRODUCT=cm_urushi
TARGET_BUILD_VARIANT=userdebug
TARGET_BUILD_TYPE=release
TARGET_BUILD_APPS=
TARGET_ARCH=arm
TARGET_ARCH_VARIANT=armv7-a-neon
HOST_ARCH=x86
HOST_OS=linux
HOST_BUILD_TYPE=release
BUILD_ID=IMM76L
============================================

build/core/main.mk:43: ********************************************************************************
build/core/main.mk:44: *  You are using version 4.0 of make.
build/core/main.mk:45: *  Android can only be built by versions 3.81 and 3.82.
build/core/main.mk:46: *  see http://source.android.com/source/download.html
build/core/main.mk:47: ********************************************************************************
============================================
PLATFORM_VERSION_CODENAME=REL
PLATFORM_VERSION=4.0.4
TARGET_PRODUCT=cm_urushi
TARGET_BUILD_VARIANT=userdebug
TARGET_BUILD_TYPE=release
TARGET_BUILD_APPS=
TARGET_ARCH=arm
TARGET_ARCH_VARIANT=armv7-a-neon
HOST_ARCH=x86
HOST_OS=linux
HOST_BUILD_TYPE=release
BUILD_ID=IMM76L
============================================
Checking build tools versions...
build/core/prebuilt.mk:143: *** recipe commences before first target.  Stop. 

Fortunately, the Firefox OS folks hit it too and have a patch.