Surfer, stoner, heir-apparent to the Swiss snowboarding throne—Max “Blurry” Buri dropped in heavy last year with his part in Absinthe’s 2015 release, Eversince. For that effort, he received a nomination for Rookie of the Year at the Transworld Rider’s Poll Awards. This year he’s back with more eye pleasing images in two projects: Absinthe’s AfterForever and Beyond Medal’s Vacation Forever.

That’s an awful lot of “forever” for one season, but in both projects you’ll see timeless style. Max has a natural flow that’s reminiscent of some of the greats—guys like Gigi Rüf and Nicolas Müller. It may seem totally natural that Absinthe is serving up yet another European prodigy. Yet Max’s path has been anything but typical.

To understand how unlikely it was for 23-year-old Max to become the next Swiss phenom, it’s helpful to look at Swiss snowboarding history. As the ‘90s came to a close, two important things happened in Switzerland that would set the stage for things to come. First, a relatively unknown kid named Gian Simmen surprised everybody by taking home snowboarding’s first halfpipe gold medal under rainy skies at the ’98 Nagano Olympics. About the same time, two young filmmakers named Justin Hostynek and Patrick Armbruster were trying to find a way to give more exposure to talented European riders. Their first effort was titled Tribal and featured the next generation of Swiss talent—Michi Albin, Romain De Marchi, Fredi Kalbermatten, Jonas Emery, David Pitschi, Nicolas Müller and many more rose to prominence with the help of Absinthe Films…

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