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With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the public imagination. These efforts typically adhere to certain rules – often a pursuit at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least one single featuring a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards “grownup” Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable band comeback concerts.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route 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 free from the media-trained constraints of the factory-produced music business – based on the audience this evening, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a fan emblazoned with the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jarring and disjointed melange of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and audio excerpts from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

During the performance on her first solo tour demonstrates, not everything on her debut album her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it's equally typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by precisely the Motown musical snippet its title suggests; the show is extended with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that devolves into a medley of 90s dance hits, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that present a borderline atonal brand of funk or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mother: it has a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and crashing rock guitar allied to clanging industrial drums. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of early 00s electroclash, or rather the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a dark computerized noise.

A Charming Performer

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, cheerily unvarnished presence: she declares, she states at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are here in force, she suggests showing appreciation by adding a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.

What Lies Ahead

It may well end the manner these kind of solo careers typically finish – the hostility towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to announce that the original group are reunited – but the reality that every attendee seem to be word-perfect as they join in vocally to a record that only came out a month ago makes you wonder. And even if it does, the final Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Thirlwall’s solo career is unlikely to recede into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

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