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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of former members of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the audience's attention. They usually follow certain rules – 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 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 band comeback concerts.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are known for undertaking, among them emphatically stating that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – based on tonight’s crowd, the most popular item 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 musical partnership with electronic pair Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the music she’s opted to make is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

An Impressive First Single

She launched her individual career with the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jarring and disjointed melange 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 every song on her debut album her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, driven by exactly the Motown musical snippet its title suggests; things are padded out with a cover of Madonna’s Frozen that transforms into a musical compilation of 90s dance hits, from 808’s Pacific State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

Additional Fascinating Content

However, there exists additional where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that present a nearly discordant brand of funk or are surrounded with deep reverberation. She dedicates Unconditional to her mother: it has a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs combined with metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was heavily influenced by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster begins like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

A Charming Performer

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic presence: she is, she states at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are here in force, she suggests thanking them by adding a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits end – the enmity towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson voiced within Natural at Disaster resolved, 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 was released just a month ago makes you wonder. 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 dimly remembered placeholder.

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