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Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip 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 featuring a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards “grownup” mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable band comeback concerts.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She’s certainly not above doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, among them emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the factory-produced music business – based on the audience this evening, the most popular item on the official goods stand is a fan emblazoned with the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than the norm.

An Impressive First Single

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

As the set on her first solo tour proves, not everything 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; things are padded out with a cover of Madonna’s Frozen that transforms into a medley of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

However, there exists additional material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that present a borderline atonal brand of funk or are surrounded with deep reverberation. She offers the track Unconditional to her mum: it features a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs allied to metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic presence: she declares, she announces at one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are here in force, she proposes showing appreciation by adding a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

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 Little Mix are back – but the fact that every attendee seem to be word-perfect as they join in vocally to an album that only came out a month ago makes you wonder. 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 realms of the barely recalled interim project.

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