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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of former members 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 one single including a cameo by an American rapper, or a lunge towards “grownup” Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the visual and auditory experience of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, including loudly underlining 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 official goods stand is a fan displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric 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 usual.

A Superb Debut

She launched her individual career with the previous year's excellent her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring and disjointed melange of big pop balladry, noisy synthesisers and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance on her initial individual concert series demonstrates, not everything on her debut album her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: the track 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 cover of Madonna’s Frozen that transforms into a medley of 90s dance hits, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

Additional Fascinating Content

However, there exists additional material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. Headache melds an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that present a nearly discordant brand of funk or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She offers Unconditional to her mum: it features a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and crashing rock guitar allied to clanging industrial drums. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of early 00s electroclash, or rather the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced 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 immensely likable, delightfully authentic presence: she is, she states at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she proposes thanking them by adding a official undergarment to the merch stand.

What Lies Ahead

It may well end the manner such individual artistic pursuits end – the enmity towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to declare that the original group are reunited – but the fact that the entire audience appear word-perfect as they sing along to an album that was released just a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the closing performance of Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Thirlwall’s solo career is unlikely to recede into the domain of the barely recalled interim project.

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