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With the exception of Harry Styles, individual artistic journeys 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 toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least one single including a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a lunge towards mature mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the visual and auditory experience of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

It’s a state of affairs that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She’s certainly not above engaging in the typical activities that ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, including 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 official goods stand is a handheld cooling device emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her collaboration with dance duo the group Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style 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, jarring and fragmented mixture of big pop balladry, noisy synthesisers and audio excerpts from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

During the performance on her first solo tour demonstrates, not every song on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as her debut single: the track Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, driven by exactly the Motown musical snippet the name implies; the show is extended 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

However, there exists additional where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that offer a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it has a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar combined with metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of early 00s electroclash, or rather the thrilling strain of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

An Appealing Presence

The woman at its centre is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic figure: she declares, she states at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she proposes showing appreciation by adding a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the manner these kind of solo careers typically finish – the hostility towards ex-group member her previous colleague Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to declare that Little Mix are back – but the reality that the entire audience appear knowing every lyric as they sing along to a record that was released just a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade plays the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester tonight and is traveling across the United Kingdom until 23 October.