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With the exception of Harry Styles, 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, replete with at least a track including a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a lunge towards mature mainstream-approved 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.

A Unique Journey

It’s a state of affairs that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are wont to do, including loudly underlining that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – based on the audience this evening, the top-selling product on the official goods stand is a handheld cooling device displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

An Impressive First Single

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring 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 initial individual concert series demonstrates, not every song on her debut album her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, driven by precisely the Motown musical snippet the name implies; things are padded out 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 present a nearly discordant brand of funk or are surrounded with deep reverberation. She offers the track Unconditional to her mum: it has a fabulous melody, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs allied to clanging industrial drums. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the thrilling strain of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

An Appealing Presence

The woman at its centre is a hugely appealing, cheerily unvarnished figure: she is, she announces at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are here in force, she suggests showing appreciation by including a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

What Lies Ahead

It may well end the way such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the hostility towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to announce that Little Mix are reunited – but the fact that every attendee appear word-perfect as they sing along to an album that was released just a month ago causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the closing Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is not destined to fade into the realms of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade performs at the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester tonight and is touring the UK until 23 October.