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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the audience's attention. These efforts typically adhere to certain rules – often a pursuit at a more edgy urban music style, replete with at least a track including a cameo by an American rapper, or a move into “grownup” Radio 2-friendly smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

It’s a state of affairs that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are wont to do, including loudly underlining that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – judging by tonight’s crowd, the top-selling product on the official goods stand is a handheld cooling device displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make 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 her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and disjointed melange of big pop balladry, noisy synthesisers and audio excerpts from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

As the set on her initial individual concert series proves, not everything on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by precisely the Supremes sample the name implies; things are padded out with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a musical compilation of 90s dance hits, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that offer a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with deep reverberation. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mum: it has a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs combined with metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster begins like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic figure: she declares, she states at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she suggests showing appreciation by including a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the manner these kind of solo careers typically finish – the enmity towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to announce that the original group are back – but the reality that the entire audience seem to be word-perfect as they sing along to an album that was released just a month ago 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 realms of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade plays the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester this evening and is traveling across the United Kingdom until 23 October.