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With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the public imagination. These efforts typically adhere to certain rules – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, replete with at least a track featuring a cameo by an American rapper, or a move into “grownup” mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the visual and auditory experience of someone enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable band comeback concerts.

An Idiosyncratic Path

It’s a state of affairs that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, including loudly underlining that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – based on the audience this evening, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a fan displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

An Impressive First Single

She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring and fragmented mixture of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and audio excerpts from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance on her first solo tour demonstrates, not every song on her debut album her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by exactly the Supremes sample its title suggests; things are padded out with a interpretation of the Madonna classic Frozen that devolves into a medley of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that offer a borderline atonal brand of funk or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She offers Unconditional to her mother: it features a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs combined with clanging industrial drums. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while 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 hugely appealing, delightfully authentic figure: she declares, she states at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are here in force, she proposes showing appreciation by including a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

What Lies Ahead

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 patched up, a press conference to announce that Little Mix are back – but the fact that every attendee seem to be word-perfect as they sing along to an album that only came out a month ago makes you wonder. And even if it does, the closing Angel Of My Dreams underlines 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 the city of Manchester this evening and is traveling across the United Kingdom through October 23rd.