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Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys 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, replete with at least one single including 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 reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

It’s a state of affairs that makes the idiosyncratic path thus far followed by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She’s certainly not above doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are known for undertaking, including loudly underlining that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – based on tonight’s crowd, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a fan emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair the group 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 launched her individual career with last year’s superb Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jolting and fragmented melange of big pop balladry, noisy synthesisers and audio excerpts from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

During the performance on her first solo tour demonstrates, not everything on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as her debut single: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally typical dancefloor-oriented pop, driven by exactly the Supremes sample the name implies; the show is extended with a cover of Madonna’s Frozen that transforms into a musical compilation of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that offer a borderline atonal brand of funk or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She dedicates Unconditional to her mother: it features a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs allied to clanging industrial drums. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or rather the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

A Charming Performer

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, cheerily unvarnished figure: 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 suggests showing appreciation by adding a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits end – the hostility towards ex-group member her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to declare that Little Mix are back – but the fact that the entire audience seem to be knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to an album that was released just a month ago causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the final Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Thirlwall’s solo career is unlikely to recede into the realms of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade plays the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester this evening and is traveling across the United Kingdom through October 23rd.