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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of former members of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the public imagination. These efforts typically adhere to certain rules – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, replete with at least a track featuring a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a move into mature Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they usually amount to a dimly remembered placeholder, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time before the inevitable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

It’s a state of affairs that makes the idiosyncratic path thus far followed by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She’s certainly not above engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are wont to do, including 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 handheld cooling device emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo the group Confidence Man – but nevertheless, 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, jarring and fragmented melange of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance on her first solo tour proves, not everything on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also standard-issue disco pop, powered by precisely the Motown musical snippet its title suggests; the show is extended with a interpretation 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.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that offer a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music 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 allied to clanging industrial drums. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the thrilling strain of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, cheerily unvarnished figure: she is, she announces at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she suggests thanking them by adding a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

What Lies Ahead

It could conclude the way such individual artistic pursuits end – the enmity towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson voiced within Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to announce that the original group are reunited – but the reality that every attendee appear word-perfect as they join in vocally to an album that was released just a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the closing Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade plays the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester tonight and is touring the UK through October 23rd.