Andy Gill, whose slashing, dissonant guitar playing in Gang of Four inspired waves of post-punk to come, died on Saturday in London. He was 64.

The band announced his death on its website. A band spokesman said the cause was pneumonia.

Gang of Four’s music was stark and bristling, yet danceable. Reimagining punk, funk and reggae with analytical rigor, the band set telegraphic lyrics and shards of guitar noise against austerely propulsive beats and syncopated silences. Its brusque, angular style would directly or indirectly influence post-punk and indie-rock bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers (who chose Mr. Gill to produce their debut album), the Jesus Lizard, Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, Franz Ferdinand and Protomartyr. Michael Hutchence of INXS once said that Gang of Four’s music “took no prisoners,” adding, “It was art meets the devil via James Brown.”

Andrew James Dalrymple Gill was born on Jan. 1, 1956, in Manchester, England. He was an art student at Leeds University when he started Gang of Four with the lead singer and main lyricist Jon King, the bassist Dave Allen and the drummer Hugo Burnham. (It was named, mockingly, after the Communist Party leaders who ruled China during its Cultural Revolution years.) He and Mr. King, friends from high school, had used travel grants to visit New York City’s burgeoning punk scene in 1976.

From the beginning, Gang of Four was determined to avoid all clichés, musical and verbal. “You could tell by listening to Gang of Four music that punk had happened. But it definitely wasn’t punk music,” Mr. Gill told the online music magazine Perfect Sound Forever in a 2000 interview.