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With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands rarely capture the public imagination. These efforts typically adhere to predictable patterns – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, complete with at least one single featuring a cameo by an American rapper, or a lunge towards “grownup” Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route currently taken by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, among them loudly underlining that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – judging by the audience this evening, the most popular item on the official goods stand is a handheld cooling device emblazoned with the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the music she’s opted to make is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than the norm.

An Impressive First Single

She launched her individual career with last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jolting and disjointed mixture of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance 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 equally typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by precisely the Supremes sample its title suggests; things are padded out with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that transforms 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 combines an Abba-esque chorus with verses that present a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mother: it features a fabulous melody, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs combined with clanging industrial drums. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or rather the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

A Charming Performer

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic presence: she is, she states at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are here in force, she proposes thanking them by adding a official undergarment to the merch stand.

What Lies Ahead

It may well end the way such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the enmity towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to announce that the original group are reunited – but the fact that the entire audience appear word-perfect as they join in vocally to a record that was released just a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the closing Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the realms of the barely recalled interim project.

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