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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the audience's attention. They usually follow predictable patterns – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least a track including a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, 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 band comeback concerts.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She’s certainly not above doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are known for undertaking, among them loudly underlining that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – judging by the audience this evening, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from the track Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jarring and fragmented mixture of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and samples from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

As the set on her initial individual concert series demonstrates, not everything on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as her debut single: Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, powered by precisely the Supremes sample its title suggests; the show is extended with a interpretation of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a musical compilation of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

Additional Fascinating Content

However, there exists additional material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache melds an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that offer a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She offers the track Unconditional to her mother: it features a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar combined with clanging industrial drums. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

A Charming Performer

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 queer audience members, who are here in force, she suggests thanking them by adding a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the way these kind of solo careers typically finish – the hostility towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to declare that the original group are reunited – but the reality that the entire audience seem to be knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to a record that was released just a month ago makes you wonder. And even if it does, the final Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is not destined to fade into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

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