“I’ve worked out this way of breaking samples up and playing them back piece by piece in real time,” Kieran Hebden said of his collaborative project with drummer Steve Reid. “I never want to send Steve loops or rhythms that he has to keep time to. I want him to keep all the time.”

Hebden and Reid make an unlikely musical couple. Hebden, a 20-something Brit, is known for making sample-based electronic music under the name Four Tet. Reid is a 60-year-old American who has drummed with an astounding array of musicians, from James Brown to John Coltrane to Fela Kuti. Yet when Hebden and Reid played their first joint concert in Paris last April, the connection was immediate.

“There was no rehearsal. We just started playing, and it all came together really quickly,” Hebden said. “I realized what an incredible musician Steve is right away, because he would respond to every minute sound I would send his way.”

Hebden and Reid met through a mutual friend, Antoine Rajon of online record shop Paris Jazz Corner. Rajon knew Hebden was seeking a jazz musician with whom to collaborate. “Steve expressed huge enthusiasm for the idea,” said Hebden. “He’s added just the sort of rhythmic element I was hoping for, and he’s open to new ideas and pushing forward in a really bold way.”

The duo entered the studio only three days after its first performance. Thrilled with the results, Hebden chose to release the entire two-hour recording without edits or overdubs. “Since it’s our first recording, there’s a kind of naivete and excitement,” Hebden explained.”I wanted the record be a clear unedited document of that moment in time.” The session will be released in two parts; the first half, “The Exchange Session Vol. 1” (Domino), is out now, with “Vol. 2” to follow later this year.

The slow-rising opener, “Morning Prayer,” evokes a temple at dawn, with Hebden’s meditative tones riding atop Reid’s shimmering cymbals. On “Soul Oscillations,” Reid pounds out a stair-climbing beat behind Hebden’s whirring drones.The album’s climax comes in “Electricity and Drum Will Change Your Mind,” as rattling percussion and careening electronics build to a fury, only to melt into delicate ambience.

Hebden uses multiple samplers to spontaneously trigger sounds that interact with Reid’s versatile drumming. Such dynamics foreshadow “Vol. 2.” “The next half is a bit more funky,” Hebden said. “It was later in the day and we were more loosened up. The first one’s quite meditative, and this next one’s a bit more in your face.”

“In your face” is a good description for the pair’s live setup. “We play right in front of each other so we can see each other the whole time,” Hebden said. “One of us gets an idea and has to find a way to communicate it without stopping the music. Steve’s been playing that way for years and has such a deep understanding of it.”

Indeed, Reid’s career trajectory is staggering. At age 19, he played on the classic hit “Dancing in the Street” by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. He went on to issue innovative albums on his own Mustervic Sound label in the 1970s, and continued to perform with artists like Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, and even Dionne Warwick. “He blows my mind,” Hebden said.”To hear about shows he did with Sun Ra, James Brown, John Coltrane – it’s overwhelming, really.”

Reid’s sense of history is evident in the work of his current group, the seven-piece Steve Reid Ensemble. Its latest release,”Spirit Walk,”is full of highenergy jams that evoke the post-bop of Coltrane and Eric Dolphy and the world beat of Fela Kuti and Randy Weston. Hebden thickened “Spirit Walk” by adding electronic sounds to half of the album. “I found it quite easy to slot in what I was doing without interfering with everybody else’s sounds,” Hebden said. “I love old free jazz records that use electronics, like the stuff Paul Bley did with analog synths alongside traditional jazz instruments.”

As the duo embarks on its first tour, Hebden is curious to see how Four Tet fans will receive his new project. “People give audiences too little credit sometimes,” Hebden said. “If the audience is aware that you’re developing your music by going somewhere different, they are often totally cool with that.”

“I think it’s a quite exciting time to catch us,” Hebden concluded. “We’ve done the groundwork of exploring each other’s interests, and now our sound is less in debt to music from the past. It’s becoming something entirely its own.”

Hebden and Reid perform April 1 & 3 at the Mercury Lounge (217 Houston Street, between Ludlow and Essex Streets, 212-260-4700).