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Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands rarely capture the audience's attention. They usually follow predictable patterns – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, replete with at least one single featuring a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a lunge towards mature Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time before the inevitable reunion tour.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, including emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – based on tonight’s crowd, the top-selling product on the official goods stand is a handheld cooling device displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than the norm.

An Impressive First Single

She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring and disjointed mixture of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and audio excerpts from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

As the set on her first solo tour proves, not every song on her debut album her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as her debut single: Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, driven by precisely the Supremes sample its title suggests; the show is extended with a interpretation of Madonna’s 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

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that offer a nearly discordant brand of funk or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mother: it has a fabulous melody, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs combined with metallic pounding beats. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately 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 malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic presence: she is, she states at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, 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 way such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the enmity towards ex-group member her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to declare that the original group are reunited – but the fact that the entire audience seem to be knowing every lyric as they sing along to a record that only came out a month ago makes you wonder. And even if it does, the closing performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is not destined to fade into the domain of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade performs at the O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester this evening and is touring the UK through October 23rd.