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With the exception of Harry Styles, individual artistic journeys of former members of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the audience's attention. They usually follow certain rules – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, replete with at least one single including a cameo by an American rapper, or a lunge towards mature mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the visual and auditory experience of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She’s certainly not above engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, among them loudly underlining that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – based on the audience this evening, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a fan emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair the group 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 the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring and fragmented 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 initial individual concert series demonstrates, not everything on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also standard-issue disco pop, powered by precisely the Supremes sample the name implies; the show is extended with a cover 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

However, there exists additional material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that offer a nearly discordant brand of funk or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She dedicates Unconditional to her mother: it has a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs combined with clanging industrial drums. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The woman at its centre is a hugely appealing, cheerily unvarnished figure: she declares, she announces at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are here in force, she proposes showing appreciation by adding a official undergarment to the merch stand.

What Lies Ahead

It could conclude the manner these kind of solo careers end – the hostility towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson expressed in Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to declare that Little Mix are back – but the fact that every attendee seem to be word-perfect as they sing along to a record that was released just a few weeks prior makes you wonder. And even if it does, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the realms of the barely recalled interim project.

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