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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 certain rules – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least a track featuring a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a move into mature Radio 2-friendly smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the visual and auditory experience of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that ex-reality TV group artists are known for undertaking, among them emphatically stating that she's free from the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – based on the audience this evening, the top-selling product on the official goods stand is a fan emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her collaboration with dance duo the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create 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 highly unusual, jolting and disjointed mixture of grand emotional pop songs, loud electronic instruments and audio excerpts from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

As the set on her first solo tour proves, not everything on her debut album her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as her debut single: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, driven by precisely the Supremes sample its title suggests; things are padded out with a interpretation of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a medley of 90s dance hits, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that offer a nearly discordant brand of funk or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mum: it has a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar allied to clanging industrial drums. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or rather the thrilling strain of millennium-era popular music that was heavily influenced by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic figure: she declares, she states at one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are here in force, she suggests thanking them by adding a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

What Lies Ahead

It may well end 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 declare that the original group are reunited – but the fact that every attendee seem to be knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to an album that only came out a month ago causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the final Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the domain of the barely recalled interim project.

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