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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of ex-participants of televised singing competition groups seldom grip the audience's attention. 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 guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a move into “grownup” mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the visual and auditory experience of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.

A Unique Journey

It’s a state of affairs that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are wont to do, including loudly underlining that she's free from the media-trained constraints of the factory-produced music business – judging by the audience this evening, the most popular item on the official goods stand is a fan displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting 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 initial individual concert series proves, not everything on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by exactly the Supremes sample 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 Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

However, there exists additional where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that offer a borderline atonal brand of funk or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She dedicates Unconditional to her mother: it has a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar combined with metallic pounding beats. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, cheerily unvarnished figure: she declares, she states at one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are here in force, she proposes thanking them by including a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the way such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the enmity towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to announce that Little Mix are reunited – but the fact that the entire audience seem to be knowing every lyric 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 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 performs at the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester tonight and is touring the UK until 23 October.