Jade Review: The Music World's Quirkiest Artist Transcends Manufactured Origins

With the exception of Harry Styles, individual artistic journeys of former members 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 a track featuring a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a move into “grownup” mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the visual and auditory experience of someone enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable reunion tour.

A Unique Journey

It’s a state of affairs that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken 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 no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – based on the audience this evening, the top-selling product on the official goods stand is a handheld cooling device displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from the track Gossip, her collaboration with dance duo Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jolting and fragmented 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 proves, not every song on her first full-length release That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by precisely the Supremes sample its title suggests; the show is extended with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that devolves into a musical compilation of 90s dance hits, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache melds an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that present a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She offers the track Unconditional to her mum: it has a fabulous melody, early 80s syndrums, and crashing rock guitar combined with clanging industrial drums. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of early 00s electroclash, or rather the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before unexpectedly swerving into a dark computerized noise.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic presence: she is, she states at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are here in force, she proposes thanking them by including a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

What Lies Ahead

It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits end – the hostility towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to declare that the original group are reunited – but the reality that every attendee seem to be knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to a record that was released just a month ago makes you wonder. And should it occur, the final Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Thirlwall’s solo career is unlikely to recede into the domain of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade performs at the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester this evening and is touring the UK until 23 October.