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Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of former members of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the public imagination. They usually follow predictable patterns – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, complete with at least a track including a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a move into “grownup” Radio 2-friendly smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become 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 Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She’s certainly not above engaging in the typical activities that ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, among them loudly underlining that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – based on tonight’s crowd, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than the norm.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jolting and fragmented melange of grand emotional pop songs, loud electronic instruments and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance on her first solo tour demonstrates, not every song on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as her debut single: Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, driven by exactly the Supremes sample its title suggests; the show is extended with a cover of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a medley of 90s dance hits, from 808’s Pacific State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that offer a borderline atonal brand of funk or are surrounded with deep reverberation. She offers Unconditional to her mum: it has a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar allied to clanging industrial drums. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the thrilling strain of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster begins like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

A Charming Performer

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, cheerily unvarnished presence: she declares, she states at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are here in force, she proposes showing appreciation by adding a official undergarment to the merch stand.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the enmity towards ex-group member her previous colleague Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to announce that the original group are back – but the fact that every attendee seem to be knowing every lyric as they sing along to a record that only came out a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the closing Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

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