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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands rarely capture the audience's attention. They usually follow predictable patterns – often a pursuit at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least one single including a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a move into “grownup” Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the visual and auditory experience of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

A Unique Journey

It’s a state of affairs that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, among them loudly underlining that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – judging by the audience this evening, the top-selling product on the official goods stand is a handheld cooling device displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the music she’s opted to make is pop music with a far more fascinating style than the norm.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and disjointed mixture of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and audio excerpts from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

As the set on her initial individual concert series demonstrates, not every song on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as her debut single: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by exactly the Motown musical snippet its title suggests; the show is extended with a cover of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a medley of 90s dance hits, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache melds an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that present a borderline atonal brand of funk or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She offers the track Unconditional to her mother: it has a fabulous melody, early 80s syndrums, and crashing rock guitar allied to metallic pounding beats. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster begins like a piano ballad before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic figure: she declares, she announces at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she proposes thanking them by including a official undergarment to the merch stand.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the manner these kind of solo careers typically finish – the enmity towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson voiced within Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to declare that the original group are reunited – but the reality that every attendee appear word-perfect as they join in vocally to a record that was released just a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the final Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the realms of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade performs at the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester this evening and is traveling across the United Kingdom until 23 October.