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With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of former members of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the public imagination. These efforts typically adhere to predictable patterns – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, complete with at least one single including a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards “grownup” mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route currently taken by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She’s certainly not above engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are wont to do, among them 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 emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair Confidence Man – but regardless, 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 the previous year's excellent her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and fragmented melange of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

As the set on her first solo tour demonstrates, not every song on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as her debut single: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also standard-issue disco pop, powered by precisely the Motown musical snippet the name implies; the show is extended with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that devolves into a musical compilation of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with verses that present a borderline atonal brand of funk or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She offers Unconditional to her mother: it has a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs combined with clanging industrial drums. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while the track Natural at Disaster begins like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The woman at its centre is a hugely appealing, cheerily unvarnished presence: she is, she announces at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are here in force, she proposes thanking them by adding a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the way such individual artistic pursuits end – the enmity towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to announce that Little Mix are back – but the fact that the entire audience appear word-perfect as they sing along to a record that only came out a month ago causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the final Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Thirlwall’s solo career is unlikely to recede into the domain of the barely recalled interim project.

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