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With the exception of Harry Styles, individual artistic journeys of former members of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the audience's attention. These efforts typically adhere to predictable patterns – often a pursuit at a toughened-up R&B sound, replete with at least one single featuring a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards “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 band comeback concerts.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are wont to do, among them loudly underlining that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – judging by the audience this evening, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than the norm.

An Impressive First Single

She launched her individual career with the previous year's excellent her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring and fragmented mixture of grand emotional pop songs, loud electronic instruments and audio excerpts from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

As the set on her initial individual concert series proves, not everything on her first full-length release That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as her debut single: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also standard-issue disco pop, powered by exactly the Supremes sample its title suggests; the show is extended with a cover of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a medley of nineties club anthems, from the track Pacific State by 808 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 combines an Abba-esque chorus with verses that present a nearly discordant brand of funk or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it has a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and crashing rock guitar allied to clanging industrial drums. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while the track Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

An Appealing Presence

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, cheerily unvarnished figure: she is, she states at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she suggests showing appreciation by adding a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

What Lies Ahead

It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the enmity towards ex-group member her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to declare that the original group are back – but the fact that every attendee seem to be word-perfect as they join in vocally to an album that only came out a few weeks prior makes you wonder. And even if it does, the closing performance of Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is not destined to fade into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

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