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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of ex-participants of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the audience's attention. They usually follow predictable patterns – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, replete with at least one single including a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a move into mature mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

It’s a state of affairs that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are known for undertaking, including emphatically stating 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 official goods stand is a fan displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her collaboration with dance duo the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

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, jolting and fragmented melange of grand emotional pop songs, loud electronic instruments and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance on her first solo tour demonstrates, not every song on her debut album 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 precisely the Supremes sample its title suggests; things are padded out with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a musical compilation of 90s dance hits, from 808’s Pacific State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

However, there exists additional material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that offer a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She offers the track Unconditional to her mum: it features a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs allied to metallic pounding beats. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by electroclash, while the track Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

A Charming Performer

The woman at its centre is a hugely appealing, cheerily unvarnished figure: she is, she states at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she suggests thanking them by including a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.

What Lies Ahead

It could conclude the way these kind of solo careers typically finish – the hostility towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to declare that Little Mix are back – but the fact that every attendee appear word-perfect as they join in vocally to an album that only came out a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the closing Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the realms of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade plays the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester this evening and is touring the UK until 23 October.