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Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of ex-participants of televised singing competition groups seldom grip the public imagination. These efforts typically adhere to certain rules – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least a track including a cameo by an American rapper, or a move into mature Radio 2-friendly smooth pop-rock territory – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable reunion tour.

A Unique Journey

It’s a state of affairs that makes the idiosyncratic path thus far followed by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are known for undertaking, including emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the factory-produced music business – judging by the audience this evening, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device displaying the phrase “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 music she’s opted to make is pop music with a far more fascinating style than the norm.

An Impressive First Single

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting 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 initial individual concert series proves, not every song on her debut 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 precisely the Supremes sample the name implies; things are padded out with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a medley of 90s dance hits, from 808’s Pacific State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with verses that offer a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She offers Unconditional to her mother: it has a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs allied to metallic pounding beats. 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 heavily influenced by electroclash, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad 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 queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she proposes thanking them by adding a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the way these kind of solo careers typically finish – the hostility towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to declare that the original group are back – but the fact that every attendee appear word-perfect as they join in vocally to an album that was released just a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the closing 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 Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester this evening and is touring the UK until 23 October.