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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of ex-participants of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the public imagination. These efforts typically adhere to certain rules – often a pursuit at a more edgy urban music style, replete with at least a track featuring a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards 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 before the inevitable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, among them 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 merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair 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 her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jarring and fragmented melange 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 initial individual concert series proves, not everything on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating 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; the show is extended with a interpretation of the Madonna classic 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

However, there exists additional material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that present a borderline atonal brand of funk or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it features a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs combined with metallic pounding beats. The song 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 electroclash, while Natural at Disaster begins 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, cheerily unvarnished presence: she is, she states at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are here in force, she suggests thanking them by including a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the manner these kind of solo careers typically finish – the enmity towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to announce that Little Mix are back – but the fact that every attendee appear word-perfect as they sing along to a record that was released just a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

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