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Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the public imagination. They usually follow certain rules – often a pursuit 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 mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound 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 Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, including emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – based on the audience this evening, the most popular item on the official goods stand is a fan emblazoned with 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 music she’s opted to make is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

An Impressive First Single

She launched her individual career with last year’s superb 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 demonstrates, not every song on her first full-length release That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by precisely the Supremes sample its title suggests; things are padded out with a cover of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves 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 where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that present a borderline atonal brand of funk or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She offers the track Unconditional to her mother: it has a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs combined with clanging industrial drums. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by electroclash, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

A Charming Performer

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic presence: she declares, she announces at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are here in force, she suggests thanking them by including a official undergarment to the merch stand.

What Lies Ahead

It could conclude the way such individual artistic pursuits end – 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 fact that every attendee seem to be word-perfect as they sing along to a record that only came out a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the closing performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the realms of the dimly remembered placeholder.

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