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Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the audience's attention. They usually follow predictable patterns – often a pursuit at a more edgy urban music style, replete with at least one single including a cameo by an American rapper, or a move into “grownup” mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable reunion tour.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route currently taken by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, among them loudly underlining that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the factory-produced music business – based on tonight’s crowd, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a fan displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

A Superb Debut

She launched her individual career with the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jolting and fragmented mixture of big pop balladry, noisy synthesisers and samples from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

During the performance on her first solo tour proves, not everything on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also standard-issue disco pop, driven by exactly the Supremes sample the name implies; things are padded out with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a musical compilation of 90s dance hits, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that present a nearly discordant brand of funk or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it has a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs 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 electroclash, while Natural at Disaster begins like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

An Appealing Presence

The woman at its centre is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic presence: she declares, she states at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she proposes thanking them by including a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.

What Lies Ahead

It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits end – the enmity towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson voiced within Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to announce that the original group are back – but the fact that every attendee appear word-perfect as they join in vocally to an album that only came out a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Thirlwall’s solo career is unlikely to recede into the realms of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade plays the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester tonight and is touring the UK through October 23rd.