SEVENTEEN's Dino Taps Lee Moon-sae and Hitchhiker for Retro-Influenced Solo Debut 'Gilboard'

SEVENTEEN's Dino released his first solo mini-album, Gilboard (吉BOARD), on August 3 under the alter-ego persona Pichwolin, a project notable not only for its sound but for how it was built. Dino is credited as a producer on every track across the album, making him the first K-pop idol to receive full production credits on an alter-ego solo project of this kind.

The album's title carries its own intent. Gilboard is a portmanteau of gil (길, road or path) and board, framing the release as a kind of notice board for life's journey. Across its tracks, Dino draws on EDM trap, city pop, and new jack swing, filtering those genres through what he describes as a distinctly Korean emotional sensibility: the concept of heung (흥), a hard-to-translate word for collective joy and spontaneous spirit, alongside hee-ro-ae-rak (희로애락), the full spectrum of human emotion from elation to grief.

The title track, "Nol-a-bo-se" (produced by Hitchhiker), anchors that vision. Hitchhiker, also known as Choi Jin-woo, is one of South Korea's more idiosyncratic electronic producers, and his involvement signals that Dino was reaching toward something outside the conventional K-pop production circuit. Dino described the song as the track that best encapsulates Pichwolin's philosophy, adding that he wanted the performance to carry the same free-ranging energy the music suggests.

The cross-generational reach of the album is one of its more striking features. Veteran producer Lee Hyun-do, whose work has shaped Korean popular music across several decades, produced the track "Jeongmal." Singer Lee Moon-sae, a defining voice of Korea's 1980s ballad era, contributes narration to "There Is No Painless Farewell." Dino spoke about both collaborations with visible appreciation, noting that Lee Hyun-do's production gave the album a sense of generational breadth, and that Lee Moon-sae's narration transformed the song into something closer to a short drama.

The music video for "Nol-a-bo-se" visualizes Pichwolin's version of a Korean rave: a gathering of people across ages and backgrounds caught up in collective heung, framed as a large-scale festival. Choreographer Kany Diabate Ahn appears in the video alongside creator Lala's alter-ego character Lee Myung-hwa.

Before the album's official release, Dino previewed the title track on KBS 1TV's Jeonguk Norae Jarang, a long-running public television music program with a broad and multigenerational audience. For an idol artist, choosing that particular stage was an unusual move. Dino explained that he wanted to reach people who might not already follow him, and that the performers of the 1970s and 1980s who appeared on similar programs had something he wanted to get closer to: a sense of individual freedom and personality that comes through even in a highly structured broadcast setting.

Dino framed the Pichwolin project as a deliberate step away from comfort. He credited his fanbase, Carats, as the reason he continues to take those steps, saying his motivation to grow comes from pushing into unfamiliar territory rather than staying with what he already knows how to do well.

Gilboard is released through Pledis Entertainment, a HYBE subsidiary.