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Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of former members of televised singing competition groups seldom grip the public imagination. These efforts typically adhere to predictable patterns – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least a track including a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards mature mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the visual and auditory experience of someone gamely killing time before the inevitable reunion tour.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are wont to do, among them loudly underlining that she's free from the media-trained constraints of the factory-produced music business – judging by the audience this evening, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a fan displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring and fragmented melange of big pop balladry, noisy synthesisers and audio excerpts from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

During the performance on her initial individual concert series proves, not every song on her debut album 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 standard-issue disco pop, driven by exactly the Supremes sample its title suggests; the show is extended with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that transforms into a musical compilation of 90s dance hits, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

More Intriguing Material

However, there exists additional material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. Headache melds an Abba-esque chorus with verses that present a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She offers the track Unconditional to her mum: it has a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar combined with clanging industrial drums. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the thrilling strain of millennium-era popular music that was heavily influenced by electroclash, while the track Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, cheerily unvarnished figure: she is, she announces at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are here in force, she proposes showing appreciation by including a official undergarment to the merch stand.

What Lies Ahead

It may well end the way such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the hostility towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson expressed in Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to announce that Little Mix are reunited – but the reality that the entire audience appear knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to an album that only came out a month ago causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the closing performance of Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is not destined to fade into the domain of the barely recalled interim project.

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