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Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands 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 one single featuring a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a lunge towards mature Radio 2-friendly smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time before the inevitable band comeback concerts.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path thus far followed by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, including emphatically stating that she's free from the media-trained constraints of the factory-produced music business – judging by the audience this evening, the top-selling product on the official goods stand is a fan emblazoned with the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her collaboration with dance duo Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

An Impressive First Single

She launched her individual career with last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring and fragmented 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: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also standard-issue disco pop, driven by exactly the Motown musical snippet its title suggests; the show is extended with a interpretation of the Madonna classic Frozen that devolves into a medley of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that offer a nearly discordant brand of funk or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She offers the track Unconditional to her mother: it has a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar combined with clanging industrial drums. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

A Charming Performer

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, cheerily unvarnished presence: she is, she announces at one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she suggests showing appreciation by adding a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits end – the enmity towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson voiced within Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to announce that the original group are reunited – but the fact that the entire audience appear word-perfect as they sing along to an album that only came out a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the realms of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade performs at the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester this evening and is touring the UK until 23 October.