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With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of ex-participants of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the public imagination. They usually follow predictable patterns – often a pursuit at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least one single including a cameo by an American rapper, or a move into “grownup” Radio 2-friendly smooth pop-rock territory – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years 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 definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that ex-reality TV group artists are known for undertaking, including loudly underlining that she's free from the media-trained constraints of the factory-produced music business – based on tonight’s crowd, the most popular item on the official goods stand is a fan displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jarring and disjointed melange of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

As the set on her first solo tour proves, not every song on her first full-length release That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, driven by exactly the Supremes sample its title suggests; things are padded out with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that transforms into a musical compilation 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. The song Headache melds an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that present a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She dedicates Unconditional to her mother: it features a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and crashing rock guitar allied to clanging industrial drums. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a dark computerized noise.

An Appealing Presence

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, cheerily unvarnished presence: she is, she announces at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she proposes thanking them by including a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the way these kind of solo careers end – the enmity towards ex-group member her previous colleague Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to announce that the original group 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 makes you wonder. And even if it does, the closing performance of 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 Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester tonight and is touring the UK through October 23rd.