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With the exception of Harry Styles, individual artistic journeys of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands rarely capture the public imagination. They usually follow certain rules – often a pursuit at a more edgy urban music style, replete with at least one single including a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards mature mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable band comeback concerts.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path 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 wont to do, including emphatically stating that she's free from the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – based on tonight’s crowd, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a fan displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the music she’s opted to make is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

An Impressive First Single

She launched her individual career with last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring and fragmented mixture of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance on her first solo tour demonstrates, not everything on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it’s also standard-issue disco pop, driven by exactly the Motown musical snippet the name implies; things are padded out with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that transforms into a musical compilation of nineties club anthems, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that offer a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mum: it features a fabulous melody, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs combined with metallic pounding beats. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or rather the thrilling strain of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a dark computerized noise.

A Charming Performer

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic figure: she is, she announces at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are here in force, she suggests showing appreciation by including a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the manner such individual artistic pursuits end – the enmity towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to declare that Little Mix are reunited – but the reality that the entire audience seem to be knowing every lyric as they sing along to a record that was released just a month ago causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is not destined to fade into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

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